t is only half
a mistake," said I. "What is the matter, and what can I do?"

"Nothin'," said he, quickly,--"that is, nothin' your own self. Just
the minute she got me outside that door she began pitchin' into you.
`I suppose that's young Dr. Glover,' said she. I told her it was, and
then she went on to say, givin' me no chance to explain nothin', that
she didn't want to have anything to do with you; that she thought it
was a shame to turn people's houses into paupers' hospitals for the
purpose of teachin' medical students; that she had heard of you, and
what she had heard she hadn't liked. All this time she kept goin'
upstairs, and I follerin' her, and the fust thing I knowed she opened a
door and went into a room, and I went in after her, and there, in a
bed, was a patient of some kind. I was took back dreadful, for the
state of the case came to me like a flash. Your uncle had been sent
for, and I was mistook for him. Now, what to say was a puzzle to me,
and I began to think pretty fast. It was an awkward business to have
to explain things to that sharp-set old woman. The fact is, I didn't
know how to begin, and was a good deal afraid, besides, but she didn't
give me no time for considerin'. `I think it's her brain,' said she,
`but perhaps you'll know better. Catherine, uncover your head!' And
with that the patient turned over a little and uncovered her head,
which she had had the sheet over. It was a young woman, and she gave
me a good look, but she didn't say nothin'. Now I WAS in a state of
mind."

"Of course you must have been," I answered. "Why didn't you tell her
that you were not a doctor, but that I was. It would have been easy
enough to explain matters. She might have thought my uncle could not
come and he had sent me, and that you had come along for company. The
patient ought to be attended to without delay."

"She's got to be-attended to," said Uncle Beamish, "or else there will
be a row and we'll have to travel--storm or no storm. But if you had
heard what that old woman said about young doctors, and you in
particular, you would know that you wasn't goin' to have anything to do
with this case--at least, you wouldn't show in it. But I've got no
more time for talkin'. I came down here on business. When the old
lady said, `Catherine, hold out your hand!' and she held it out, I had
nothin' to do but step up and feel her pulse. I know how to do that,
for I have done a lot of nussin' in