As Christie ended with the figure suggested by her favorite work, Bella said after a thoughtful pause: 

“But few of the women I know can talk about any thing but servants, dress, and gossip.  Here and there one knows something of music, art, or literature; but the superior ones are not favorites with the larger class of gentlemen.”

“Then let the superior women cultivate the smaller class of men who do admire intelligence as well as beauty.  There are plenty of them, and you had better introduce a few as samples, though their coats may not be of the finest broadcloth, nor their fathers ‘solid men.’  Women lead in society, and when men find that they can not only dress with taste, but talk with sense, the lords of creation will be glad to drop mere twaddle and converse as with their equals.  Bless my heart!” cried Christie, walking about the room as if she had mounted her hobby, and was off for a canter, “how people can go on in such an idiotic fashion passes my understanding.  Why keep up an endless clatter about gowns and dinners, your neighbors’ affairs, and your own aches, when there is a world full of grand questions to settle, lovely things to see, wise things to study, and noble things to imitate.  Bella, you must try the experiment, and be the queen of a better society than any you can reign over now.”

“It looks inviting, and I will try it with you to help me.  I know Harry would like it, and I’ll get him to recommend it to his patients.  If he is as successful here as elsewhere they will swallow any dose he orders; for he knows how to manage people wonderfully well.  He prescribed a silk dress to a despondent, dowdy patient once, telling her the electricity of silk was good for her nerves:  she obeyed, and when well dressed felt so much better that she bestirred herself generally and recovered; but to this day she sings the praises of Dr. Carrol’s electric cure.”

Bella was laughing gaily as she spoke, and so was Christie as she replied: 

“That’s just what I want you to do with your patients.  Dress up their minds in their best; get them out into the air; and cure their ills by the magnetism of more active, earnest lives.”

They talked over the new plan with increasing interest; for Christie did not mean that Bella should be one of the brilliant women who shine for a little while, and then go out like a firework.  And Bella felt as if she had found something to do in her own sphere, a sort of charity she was fitted for, and with it a pleasant sense of power to give it zest.

When Letty and her mother came in, they found a much happier looking guest than the one Christie had welcomed an hour before.  Scarcely had she introduced them when voices in the lane made all look up to see old Hepsey and Mrs. Wilkins approaching.

“Two more of my dear friends, Bella:  a fugitive slave and a laundress.  One has saved scores of her own people, and is my pet heroine.  The other has the bravest, cheeriest soul I know, and is my private oracle.”