When the tea came, and she had sipped a little, she perked up wonderfully. Said she, “Oh, the magic effect of food eaten judiciously! Now I am a lioness, and do not fear the future. Yes; I will tell you my story--and, if you think you are going to hear a love-story, you will be nicely caught--ha-ha! No, _sir;”_ said she, with rising fervor and heightened color, “you will hear a story the public is deeply interested in and does not know it; ay, a story that will certainly be referred to with wonder and shame, whenever civilization shall become a reality, and law cease to be a tool of injustice and monopoly.” She paused a moment; then said a little doggedly, as one used to encounter prejudice, “I am a medical student; a would-be doctor.” “Ah!” “And so well qualified by genuine gifts, by study from my infancy, by zeal, quick senses, and cultivated judgment, that, were all the leading London physicians examined to-morrow by qualified persons at the same board as myself, most of those wealthy practitioners--not all, mind you--would cut an indifferent figure in modern science compared with me, whom you have had to rescue from starvation--because I am a woman.” Her eye flashed. But she moderated herself, and said, “That is the outline; and it is a grievance. Now, grievances are bores. You can escape this one before it is too late.” “If it lies with me, I demand the minutest details,” said Vizard, warmly. “You shall have them; and true to the letter.” Vizard settled the small account, and adjourned, with his companion, to the garden. She walked by his side, with her face sometimes thoughtfully bent on the ground, and sometimes confronting him with ardor, and told him a true story, the simplicity of which I shall try not to spoil with any vulgar arts of fiction. A LITTLE NARRATIVE OF DRY FACTS TOLD TO A WOMAN-HATER BY A WOMAN. CHAPTER XII.