The heroic young woman, with a smiling countenance, begged of him to dry his eyes: perhaps, said she, I may recover. Then fixing herself firmly in the chair, she pronounced, with much composure, 'I am ready.' Two maid servants stood one at each side of her, and the surgeon drew near to do his painful work. He had uncovered her bosom, and taken off the dressings, when Mr Main, casting his eyes at her breast, begged he might have leave to examine it before they proceeded. The other surgeon, with some indignation, said, his doing so was only an unnecessary delay; and had already laid hold of his knife, when Mr Main having looked at it, said, he was of opinion it might be saved, without endangering the lady's life. The other, with a contemptuous smile, told him, he was sorry he thought him so ignorant of his profession, and without much ceremony, putting him aside, was about to proceed to the operation; when Mr Main laying hold of him, said, that he should never do it in his presence; adding, with some warmth, that he would engage to make a perfect cure of it in a month, without the pain or hazard of amputation. The young lady, who had been an eye-witness of what passed, for she would not suffer her face to be covered, now thought it proper to interpose. She told the unfeeling operator, the he might be very sure she would embrace any distant hope of saving herself from the pain, the danger, and the loss she must sustain, if he pursued the method he intended. She was not, however, so irresolute, she said, as to desire either to avoid or postpone the operation, if it should be found necessary; but as there was hope given her of a cure without it, she thought it but reasonable to make the experiment; and should therefore refer the decision of her case to a third person of skill in the profession, by whose opinion she would be determined. The two women servants, who are always professed enemies to chirurgical operations, readily joined in her sentiments, and saying it was a mortal sin to cut and hack any christian, they made haste to cover up their young lady again. The disappointed surgeon hardly forbore rude language to the women; and telling Mr Main he would make him know what it was to traduce the skill of a practitioner of his standing, marched off in a violent passion, saying to his patient, if she had a mind to kill herself, it was nothing to him. The modest young man, delighted to find the case of his beloved not so desperate as he had supposed it to be, begged she would permit him to apply some proper dressings to the afflicted part, and conjuring her to call in the aid of the ablest surgeon that could be procured, took his leave.