Miss Gleason seized her first chance of speaking with Grace alone. "Oh,
do you know how much you are doing for us all?"

"Doing for you, all? How doing?" faltered Grace, whom she had
whisperingly halted in a corner of the hall leading from the dining-room.

"By acting in unison,--by solving the most perplexing problem in women's
practising your profession. She passed the edge of her fan over her lips
before letting it fall furled upon her left hand, and looked luminously
into Grace's eyes.

"I don't at all know what you mean, Miss Gleason," said the other.

Miss Gleason kicked out the skirt of her dress, so as to leave herself
perfectly free for the explanation. "Practising in harmony with a
physician of the other sex. I have always felt that there was the great
difficulty,--how to bring that about. I have always felt that the TRUE
physician must be DUAL,--have both the woman's nature and the man's; the
woman's tender touch, the man's firm grasp. You have shown how the
medical education of women can meet this want. The physician can actually
be dual,--be two, in fact. Hereafter, I have no doubt we shall always
call a physician of each sex. But it's wonderful how you could ever bring
it about, though you can do anything! Has n't it worn upon you?" Miss
Gleason darted out her sentences in quick, short breaths, fixing Grace
with her eyes, and at each clause nervously tapping her chest with her
reopened fan.

"If you suppose," said Grace, "that Dr. Mulbridge and I are acting
professionally in unison, as you call it, you are mistaken. He has entire
charge of the case; I gave it up to him, and I am merely nursing Mrs.