Page:Sketches of some distinguished Indian women.djvu/74

62 From that date she devoted herself, with the steadiness and perseverance for which she was remarkable, to her medical work, throwing herself into it with enthusiasm, and working sometimes as much as fifteen or sixteen hours a day. It was not easy work at all, and the severe application, as well as the trying climate, told much upon her health. In February 1884 she nearly succumbed to a severe attack of diphtheria, and during the whole remainder of her stay in America, she suffered constantly from headaches or from colds on her chest.

During the spring of 1884, Mrs. Joshee, as she was now usually called, was asked to deliver a lecture before one of the missionary societies on the subject of "child marriage," and surprised and disappointed her audience by speaking in terms of approval of the custom. Her lecture raised quite a storm of controversy, and no doubt alienated from her the sympathy of a good many people, who could not understand the position she took up on the subject. If they had been better acquainted with the history of her own life, and with the traditions among which she had grown up, they might perhaps have been able to judge her more leniently, and might have felt able to offer her their sympathy in what she had been able to accomplish, while at the same time regretting that her emancipation from the thraldom of custom was not more complete.