-yes--it must be so. I cried bitterly the first time, and thought
I should have died of shame. I resisted, and they threatened to send me
away, and that made me so ill. Only imagine, almost naked before
everybody! It is very painful."

"Before the doctor alone I can easily comprehend it is necessary, and
even that is a great deal to submit to; but why before all these young
men?"

"They learn and practise on us; that is why we are here,--why they admit
us into the hospital."

"Ah, I understand," said Jeanne Duport, with bitterness; "they give us
nothing for nothing. Yet still there are times when even that could not
be. Suppose my poor girl Catherine, who is only fifteen, were to come to
the hospital, would they dare with her, before so many young men,
to--Oh, no! I would rather see her die at home!"

"Oh, if she came here she must make up her mind to do as the others
do,--as you and I. But hold your tongue; if the poor young lady in front
hears you--they say she was rich, and, perhaps, has never left her
mother before,--and yet her turn comes now. Only think how confused and
distressed she will be."

"I shudder when I think of her! Poor child!"

"Hush, Jeanne! Here is the doctor!" said Lorraine.

After having quickly visited several patients who presented nothing
remarkable in their cases, the doctor at last came to Jeanne. At the
sight of this crowd coming around her bed, anxious to see and learn, the
poor creature, overcome with fear and shame, pulled the bed-clothes
tightly around her. The severe and meditative countenance of the doctor,
his penetrating glance, his eyebrows, always drawn down by his
reflective habit, his abrupt mode of speech, impatient and quick,
increased the alarm of poor Jeanne.

"A new subject!" said the doctor, as he read the placard in which was
inscribed the nature of the patient's malady, and throwing on Jeanne a
lengthened look of scrutiny. There was a profound silence amongst the
assistants, who, in imitation of the prince of science, fixed a
scrutinising glance on the patient. After an examination of several
minutes, the doctor, remarking something wrong in the yellow tint of the
patient's eyeball, approached her more closely, and, raising the lid
with his finger, examined it silently. Then several of the students,
responding to the kind of mute invitation of their professor, drew near,
and gazed at Jeanne's eye with attention. The doctor then began:

"Your name?"

"Jeanne D