"Who cares?" said Miss Gale, turning her head sharply on him in the way Ihave tried to describe.
"I care," said Vizard. "I find wrath interfere with my digestion. Please go on, and tell us what your mother says. She has more common sense than somebody else I won't name--politeness forbids.""Well, who doubts that?" said the lady, with frank good humor. "Of course she has more sense than any of us. Well, my mother says--oh, Miss Vizard!""No, she doesn't now. She never heard the name of Vizard."Miss Gale was in no humor for feeble jokes. She turned half angrily away from him to Zoe. "She says I have been well educated, and know languages;and we are both under a cloud, and I had better give up all thought of medicine, and take to teaching.""Well, Miss Gale," said Zoe, "if you ask _me,_ I must say I think it is good advice. With all your gifts, how can you fight the world? We are all interested in you here; and it is a curious thing, but do you know we agreed the other day you would have to give up medicine, and fall into some occupation in which there are many ladies already to keep you in countenance. Teaching was mentioned, I think; was it not, Harrington?"Rhoda Gale sighed deeply.
"I am not surprised," said she. "Most women of the world think with you.
But oh, Miss Vizard, please take into account all that I have done and suffered for medicine! Is all that to go for _nothing?_ Think what a bitter thing it must be to do, and then to undo; to labor and study, and then knock it all down--to cut a slice out of one's life, out of the very heart of it--and throw it clean away. I know it is hard for you to enter into the feelings of any one who loves science, and is told to desert it.