I recall one case in which the surgeon found such complications that there was nothing to do but bring the operation to a close, with the hope that the patient could rally from the anesthetic and have some minutes with her friends before the end. As she sank steadily, with what breathless but orderly haste we worked! That drawn, tense look on the surgeon’s face, the awful stillness in the operating room! Actuated by one motive, the assistants were so many extra hands for the surgeon, anticipating his needs to the letter. Restoratives were applied, every conceivable means was employed to counteract the collapse into which the patient was sinking. Giving his entire attention to the field of operation, and working with marvellous rapidity, the surgeon was taking the last stitches, when we told him she was gone. Nervelessly he dropped his hands, leaving Laidlaw and me to finish the stitches and apply the dressings. The look of agony on the face he lifted to us was a revelation. I had never realized till then what the taking of such a serious case means to a surgeon, and was more especially impressed as I had thought this particular surgeon cold and self-centred. A few minutes later he came to me, his voice shaking, and asked if, as a special favour to him, I would go down and speak with the friends, and tell them carefully about the outcome. Not an easy thing to do, but I felt so much compassion for him I would not have hesitated had it been twice as hard. Sometimes our patients were poor and obscure; again, as in the above case, from well-known Boston families--the extremes of life met in that little hospital of about one hundred beds, and scenes grave and gay alternated in rapid succession. One day a big demonstrative fellow under etherization caused me no end of embarrassment: It was an emergency case sandwiched in between others, and they brought him in the operating room only partly anesthetized. It was a day when the room was full of students. I was busy, passing back and forth, getting things ready, when in the maudlin loquacity of that first-stage of ether he threw out his arms and begged me to come and hold his hand. They tried to quiet him, and to push the ether, but he took it poorly and resisted vigorously, and kept addressing to me many endearing epithets as he entreated me to come and hold his hand. Of course the students enjoyed it, and suppressed titters passed along the rows of spectators. My face reddened furiously. I tried to keep out of sight as much as possible, but with the persistence of one partly under ether, he kept calling, “Let her come and hold my hand--let the little angel hold my hand.”