Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/212

 have been difficult to do otherwise, with the faculty treating her as a genius given into their developing care. Miss Van Nest had chosen surgery as her life-work, and Dr. Lincoln, the famous consulting surgeon of the clinic attached to the college, made no secret of the fact that he regarded her as a phenomenon. He invariably selected her as one of his assistants in operations, and made curt, illuminative comments to her as the work progressed. He had even been heard to warn her not to study too hard—a caution rarely given by the great doctor, who held the days all too short for the things to be done in them. Notwithstanding this warning, she continued to work eighteen hours of the twenty-four. There were no distractions, for she had few acquaintances and no intimates. Several times a year she left the city for a few days, and it became known in some mysterious way that she spent them in a distant convent with a former teacher to whom she was devoted, and who continued to exercise great influence over her. It was whispered that she had been led to adopt surgery as a profession by the advice of this cloister friend. Dr. Lincoln sniffed openly when the surmise came to his ears.

"She will be a surgeon because she was born one," he said. "She has the brain, nerves, and