I entered the omnibus again, speculating constantly on what I should do next. Everywhere, my inquiries about women physicians were received with a pitiful shrug of the shoulders, and I could obtain no information concerning the Philadelphia Female Medical College whose report I had read in Berlin. I had finally consulted the newspapers in spite of all the warnings against so doing, and I was almost at the point of calling upon a Mr. and Mrs. B. who advertised their private lying-in hospital (Mrs. B., after becoming a widow, resumed the name of her first husband and became the originator of the homeopathic medical college for women), when a thought suddenly dawned upon me. Might not the people in the Home for the Friendless be able to give me advice? I had hardly conceived the idea, when I determined to ride directly up there instead of stopping at the street in which I lived. I thought, besides, that some employment might be found for my sister Anna where she could learn the English language for which she had evinced some talent, although I had decided that I could never become master of it. I had once seen the matron, Miss Goodrich, when I had called there on Catherine S. She had a humane face, and I was persuaded that I should find a friend in her. I was not mistaken. I told her of my plans in coming here and of our present mode of life and prospects, and confided to her my disappointment and dejection as well as my determination to persevere courageously. She seemed to understand and to enter into my feelings and promised to see Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, whom she advised me to call upon at once. I went home full of the hope and inspiration of a new life--the happiness of that morning can hardly be comprehended. I was not suffering, it is true, for the necessaries of life, but what was far worse, I suffered from the feeling that I lived for no purpose but to eat and to drink. I had no friends who were interested in the pursuits towards which my nature inclined, and I saw crowds of arrogant people about me to whom I could not prove that I was their equal in spite of their money. My sisters had not seen me so cheerful since our arrival in America and they thought that I had surely discovered the philosophers’ stone. I told them of what I had done and received their approbation. CHAPTER XIII