better than they; because I was self-righteous and suspicious and stubborn.  Well, I must bear the penalty:  and oh, if I could only bear it alone!” With a long sigh she took back the burden which she had been struggling to cast off, and from which for a time she had actually seemed to escape.  She put away her hat and shawl, and stood before the glass, smoothing her hair.  “When will it ever end?” she moaned to the reflection there, rather than to her mother, who did not interrupt this spiritual ordeal.  In another age, such a New England girl would have tortured herself with inquisition as to some neglected duty to God;—­in ours, when religion is so largely humanified, this Puritan soul could only wreak itself in a sense of irreparable wrong to her fellow-creature.

When she went out she met Miss Gleason half-way down the corridor to Mrs. Maynard’s door.  The latter had a book in her hand, and came forward whispering.  “She’s asleep,” she said very sibilantly.  “I have read her to sleep, and she’s sleeping beautifully.  Have you ever read it?” she asked, with hoarse breaks from her undertone, as she held up one of those cheap library-editions of a novel toward Grace.

“Jane Eyre?  Why, of course.  Long ago.”

“So have I,” said Miss Gleason.  “But I sent and got it again, to refresh my impressions of Rochester.  We all think Dr. Mulbridge is just like him.  Rochester is my ideal character,—­a perfect conception of a man:  so abrupt, so rough, so savage.  Oh, I like those men!  Don’t you?” she fluted.  “Mrs. Maynard sees the resemblance, as well as the rest of us.  But I know!  You don’t approve of them.  I suppose they can’t be defended on some grounds; but I can see how, even in such a case as this, the perfect mastery of the man-physician constitutes the highest usefulness of the woman-physician.  The advancement of women must be as women.  ’Male and female created he them,’ and it is only in remembering this that we are helping Gawd, whether as an anthropomorphic conception or a universally pervading instinct of love, don’t you think?”

With her novel clapped against her breast, she leaned winningly over toward Grace, and fixed her with her wide eyes, which had rings of white round the pupils.

“Do tell me!” she ran on without waiting an answer.  “Didn’t you go with Mr. Libby because you hoped it might storm, and wished to take the same risk as Mrs. Maynard?  I told Mrs. Alger you did!”

Grace flushed guiltily, and Miss Gleason cowered a little, perhaps interpreting the color as resentment.  “I should consider that a very silly motive,” she said, helplessly ashamed that she was leaving the weight of the blow upon Miss Gleason’s shoulders instead of her own.

“Of course,” said Miss Gleason enthusiastically, “you can’t confess it.  But I know you are capable of such a thing—­of anything heroic!  Do forgive me,” she said, seizing Grace’s hand.  She held it a moment, gazing with a devouring fondness into her face, which she stooped a little sidewise to peer up into.  Then she quickly dropped her hand, and, whirling away, glided slimly out of the corridor.