第58章

That was a French sneer. The French are _un gens moqueur,_ you know. Ireceived both shrug and sneer like marble. He ended it all by saying the school had no written law excluding doctresses; and the old records proved women had graduated, and even lectured, there. I had only to pay my fees, and enter upon my routine of studies. So I was admitted on sufferance; but I soon earned the good opinion of the professors, and of this one in particular; and then Cornelia applied for admission, and was let in too. We lived together, and had no secrets; and I think, sir, Imay venture to say that we showed some little wisdom, if you consider our age, and all that was done to spoil us. As to parrying their little sly attempts at flirtation, that is nothing; we came prepared. But, when our fellow-students found we were in earnest, and had high views, the chivalrous spirit of a gallant nation took fire, and they treated us with a delicate reverence that might have turned any woman's head. But we had the credit of a sneered-at sex to keep up, and felt our danger, and warned each other; and I remember I told Cornelia how many young ladies in the States I had seen puffed up by the men's extravagant homage, and become spoiled children, and offensively arrogant and discourteous; so Ientreated her to check those vices in me the moment she saw them coming.

"When we had been here a year, attending all the lectures--clinical medicine and surgery included--news came that one British school, Edinburgh, had shown symptoms of yielding to Continental civilization and relaxing monopoly. That turned me North directly. My mother is English: Iwanted to be a British doctress, not a French. Cornelia had misgivings, and even condescended to cry over me. But I am a mule, and always was.

Then that dear friend made terms with me: I must not break off my connection with the French school, she said. No; she had thought it well over; I must ask leave of the French professors to study in the North, and bring back notes about those distant Thulians. Says she, 'Your studies in that savage island will be allowed to go for something here, if you improve your time--and you will be sure to, sweetheart-- that Imay be always proud of you.' Dear Cornelia!""Am I to believe all this?" said Vizard. "Can women be such true friends?""What cannot women be? What! are you one of those who take us for a _clique?_ Don't you know more than half mankind are women?""Alas!"

"Alas for them!" said Rhoda, sharply.

"Well, well," said Vizard, putting on sudden humility, "don't let us quarrel. I hate quarreling--where I'm sure to get the worst. Ay, friendship is a fine thing, in men or women; a far nobler sentiment than love. You will not admit that, of course, being a woman.""Oh, yes, I will," said she. "Why, I have observed love attentively; and I pronounce it a fever of the mind. It disturbs the judgment and perverts the conscience. You side with the beloved, right or wrong. What personal degradation! I observe, too, that a grand passion is a grand misfortune:

they are always in a storm of hope, fears, doubt, jealousy, rapture, rage, and the end deceit, or else satiety. Friendship is steady and peaceful; not much jealousy, no heart-burnings. It strengthens with time, and survives the small-pox and a wooden leg. It doubles our joys, and divides our grief, and lights and warms our lives with a steady flame.