"Yes and no. I have a fair professional training, and this gives me some confidence. But sometimes, it would be greater if I had an extensive practise, I[Pg 43] feel baffled, and shrink from the responsibility that a physician always assumes."

[Pg 43]

"I am glad to hear you say so," she remarked, approvingly. "Modesty is becoming in any profession. Do you feel encouraged by your success thus far?"

"I am gaining, but my progress seems slow. I have not yet reached the point when I am self-supporting."

She looked at me thoughtfully.

"Of course you would not have established yourself here if you had not a reserve fund to fall back upon? But perhaps I am showing too much curiosity."

"No, I do not regard it as curiosity, only as a kind interest in my welfare."

"You judge me right."

"I brought with me a few hundred dollars, Miss Blagden—what was left to me from the legacy of a good aunt—but I have already used a quarter of it, and every month it grows less."

"I feel an interest in young men—I am[Pg 44] free to say this without any fear of being misunderstood, being an old woman—"

[Pg 44]

"An old woman?"

"Well, I am more than twenty-nine."

We both smiled, for this was the age that Mrs. Wyman owned up to.

"At any rate," she resumed, "I am considerably older than you. I will admit, Dr. Fenwick, that I am not a blind believer in the medical profession. There are some, even of those who have achieved a certain measure of success, whom I look upon as solemn pretenders."

"Yet if you were quite ill you would call in a physician?"

"Yes. I am not quite foolish enough to undertake to doctor myself in a serious illness. But I would repose unquestioning faith in no one, however eminent."

"I don't think we shall disagree on that point. A physician understands his 

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