The man was ashamed--I saw it in his face as he turned it away from me; yet he saw in me a proof that he had been vanquished in intrigue, and he was resolved that the occasion should end in my overthrow. Much more was said about the presents and their significance, and I soon ceased to be the humble woman and spoke boldly what I thought, in defiance of his authority, as I had done at the time of the religious conversation (by the way, I never attended church again after that interview). The end was that I declared my readiness to leave the hospital. He wished to inflict direct punishment on me and forbade me to be present at the examination of the class which was to take place the next day. This was really a hard penalty to which he was forced for his own sake. For if I had been present, I should have told the whole affair to men of a nobler stamp who would have opposed, as they afterwards did, my leaving a place which I filled to their entire satisfaction. CHAPTER IX _She begins private practice--Mrs. Schmidt and many physicians plan to establish a Maternity Hospital for her--Her father renews his insistence that she should marry--Recollections of a report of the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia, and of Dr. Schmidt’s comment on it, turn her thoughts to America, and she decides to emigrate--She receives official acknowledgment of her work at the Hospital, together with a gift of money--Accompanied by a younger sister, she arrives in New York. (Twenty-four years of age: 1852-1853.)_ I made my preparations to leave the hospital on the 15th of November, 1852. What was I to do? I was not made to practice quietly, as is commonly done; my education and aspirations demanded more than this. For the time, I could do nothing more than inform my patients that I intended to practice independently. My father again wished that I should marry, and I began to ask myself whether marriage is an institution to relieve parents from embarrassment. When troubled about the future of a son, parents are ready to give him to the army; when in fears of the destiny of a daughter, they induce her to become the slave of the marriage bond. I never doubted that it was more unendurable and unworthy to be a wife without love than a soldier without a special calling for that profession, and I never could think of marriage as the means to procure a shelter and bread. I had so many schemes in my head that I would not listen to his words. Among these was especially the wish to emigrate to America. The Pennsylvania Female Medical College had sent its first report to Dr. Schmidt, who had informed me as well as his colleagues of it and had advocated the justice of such a reform. It was in March, 1852, that he spoke of this, saying to those present, “In America, women will now become physicians, like the men; this shows that only in a republic can it be proved that science has no sex.”