While I stood there lost in thought, an old woman, leaning on a staff, passed me. I did not immediately recognize her, but at a second glance I saw it was Hripsime. Nurse Hripsime was a woman of five-and-seventy, yet, from her steady gait, her lively speech, and her fiery eyes, she appeared to be scarcely fifty. She was vigorous and hearty, expressed her opinions like a man, and was abrupt in her speech. Had she not worn women's garments one could easily have taken her for a man. Indeed, in conversation she held her own with ten men. Once, I wot not for what reason, she was summoned to court. She went thither, placed herself before the judge, and spoke so bravely that everyone gaped and stared at her as at a prodigy. Another time thieves tried to get into her house at night, knowing that she was alone like an owl in the house. The thieves began to pry open the door with a crowbar, and when Nurse Hripsime heard it she sprang nimbly out of bed, seized her stick from its corner, and began to shout: "Ho, there! Simon, Gabriel, Matthew, Stephan, Aswadur, get up quickly. Get your axes and sticks. Thieves are here; collar the rascals; bind them, skin them, strike them dead!" The thieves probably did not know with whom they had to deal, and, when at the outcry of the old woman they conceived that a half-dozen stout-handed fellows might be in the house, they took themselves off. Just such a cunning, fearless woman was Aunt Hripsime. "Good-morning, nurse," said I. "God greet thee," she replied. "Where have you been?" "I have been with the sick," she rejoined. Oh, yes! I had wholly forgotten to say that Nurse Hripsime, though she could neither read nor write, was a skilful physician. She laid the sick person on the grass, administered a sherbet, cured hemorrhoids and epilepsy; and especially with sick women was she successful. Yes, to her skill I myself can bear witness. About four years ago my child was taken ill in the dog-days, and for three years my wife had had a fever, so that she was very feeble. The daughter of Arutin, the gold-worker, and the wife of Saak, the tile-maker, said to me: "There is an excellent physician called Hripsime. Send for her, and you will not regret it." To speak candidly, I have never found much brains in our doctor. He turns round on his heels and scribbles out a great many prescriptions, but his skill is not worth a toadstool.