“A man would n’t,” Mrs. Breen remarked.

“No.  I am not a man.  I have accepted that; with all the rest.  I don’t rebel against being a woman.  If I had been a man, I should n’t have studied medicine.  You know that.  I wished to be a physician because I was a woman, and because—­because—­I had failed where—­other women’s hopes are.”  She said it out firmly, and her mother softened to her in proportion to the girl’s own strength.  “I might have been just a nurse.  You know I should have been willing to be that, but I thought I could be something more.  But it’s no use talking.”  She added, after an interval, in which her mother rocked to and fro with a gentle motion that searched the joints of her chair, and brought out its most plaintive squeak in pathetic iteration, and watched Grace, as she sat looking seaward through the open window, “I think it’s rather hard, mother, that you should be always talking as if I wished to take my calling mannishly.  All that I intend is not to take it womanishly; but as for not being a woman about it, or about anything, that’s simply impossible.  A woman is reminded of her insufficiency to herself every hour of the day.  And it’s always a man that comes to her help.  I dropped some things out of my lap down there, and by the time I had gathered them up I was wound round and round with linen thread so that I could n’t move a step, and Mr. Libby cut me loose.  I could have done it myself, but it seemed right and natural that he should do it.  I dare say he plumed himself upon his service to me,—­that would be natural, too.  I have things enough to keep me meek, mother!”

She did not look round at Mrs. Breen, who said, “I think you are morbid about it.”

“Yes.  And I have the satisfaction of knowing that whatever people think of Louise’s giddiness, I’m, a great deal more scandalous to them than she is simply because I wish to do some good in the world, in a way that women have n’t done it, usually.”

“Now you are morbid.”

“Oh, yes!  Talk about men being obstacles!  It’s other women!  There isn’t a woman in the house that would n’t sooner trust herself in the hands of the stupidest boy that got his diploma with me than she would in mine.  Louise knows it, and she feels that she has a claim upon me in being my patient.  And I ’ve no influence with her about her conduct because she understands perfectly well that they all consider me much worse.  She prides herself on doing me justice.  She patronizes me.  She tells me that I’m just as nice as, if I hadn’t ‘been through all that.’” Grace rose, and a laugh, which was half a sob, broke from her.

Mrs. Breen could not feel the humor of the predicament.  “She puts you in a false position.”

“I must go and see where that poor little wretch of a child is,” said Grace, going out of the room.  She returned in an hour, and asked her mother for the arnica.  “Bella has had a bump,” she explained.