"I'm glad it hasn't come to you yet. If it was a question of mere
professional pride, I should say, By all means call him at once. But I
feel that a great deal more is involved. If you yield, you make it harder
for other women to help themselves hereafter, and you confirm such people
as these in their distrust of female physicians. Looking at it in a large
way, I almost feel that it would be better for her to die than for you to
give up; and feeling as I do"--

"Are you talking of Mrs. Maynard?" asked Grace.

"They are all saying that you ought to give up the case to Dr. Mulbridge.
But I hope you won't. I should n't blame you for calling in another
female physician"--

"Thank you," answered Grace. "There is no danger of her dying. But it
seems to me that she has too many female physicians already. In this
house I should think it better to call a man." She left the barb to
rankle in Miss Gleason's breast, and followed her mother to her room, who
avenged Miss Gleason by a series of inquisitional tortures, ending with
the hope that, whatever she did, Grace would not have that silly
creature's blood on her hands. The girl opened her lips to attempt some
answer to this unanswerable aspiration, when the unwonted sound of wheels
on the road without caught her ear.

"What is that, Grace?" demanded her mother, as if Grace were guilty of
the noise.

"Mr. Libby," answered Grace, rising.

"Has he come for you?"