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79 her coming, such new hope and confidence could she infuse into the patient. The very touch of her warm and skilful hand; the quickness of her sympathy and comprehension; her courage, decision, and presence of mind in cases of great danger; her observation of every minutest symptom,—all marked her out as one of Nature's great practitioners, while her enthusiasm for anatomy and physiology seemed to show that, if she could have had the opportunity, she would have been also a true and pure and tireless devotee of science. Her popularity drew her at one time into so wide an amateur practice that she found she was neglecting her home duties for it, and gave it up for the sake of her sewing. But how much more appropriate and grateful would her ministration have been,—a mother herself, a baby nurse absolutely perfect, and with the most sensitive and at the same time the steadiest nervous organization in the world,—at the bedside of her friends and neighbours in their need, than the services of the ordinary country doctors who did officiate there!

It seems to me not well for us any longer presumptously to decide for each other what is and what is not "feminine," instead of simply taking it for granted that, when God gives a woman talent and aspirations other than domestic, he means her to use them. Agriculture is the noblest and manliest of all industrial pursuits, as well as the most indispensable; but if, for fear they were not "masculine," all men should suddenly betake themselves to the plough, this great civilization of theirs, with all its splendours, would disappear like a dream. It is the same with our sewing; it is indispensable; it is most womanly; but for the whole of us to be doing it, as we are, is simply keeping our sex from its natural development. Surely it is not to be denied that we are all on a dead level of mental achievement and social consideration, and that we are growing less valuable