She was constantly brought to see the difference between him and these other men; every hour she spent there brought deeper appreciation of Karl's greatness, clearer sense of it. And when their kindly patronage sometimes passed from the amusing to the insufferable, she would think how Karl, master of them all, took her so unreservedly into his mind and heart, cherishing her ideas and opinions as quite the most vital things in all the world, and sometimes that would help her to smile, and not infrequently it made her long to hurl a test-tube at the self-satisfied head of Mr. Beason. But always, in the end, it caused her to set her whole being with new persistence, more passionate stubbornness, in this determination to achieve. It was while she was still alone that Professor Hastings came in with a note he had just received for her. "It's from Dr. Parkman," she said as she tore it open hastily. She read a little of it and then sat down. He thought for a moment that she was going to cry. "Dr. Parkman wants me to come down to one of his operations this afternoon,"--she looked up at him appealingly. "I--I never went to anything like that," she added, with a tremulous laugh. "What does he say about it?" he asked, anxiously. "Merely--merely that it will be a good cancer operation, and that I had better begin on that part of the work. He says he would be willing to do that, but he thinks it will help me to be able to make some of the observations for Dr. Hubers myself. I--well, it sometimes makes me sick to see things I don't like,"--laughing a little, and plainly unnerved. "Oh, no," he assured her; "it will not be that bad." But he added, uneasily: "Dr. Parkman seems anxious for you to come?" "No, not particularly anxious; he simply tells me to be there at two o'clock." "I suppose then you'd better go," he laughed. "You won't mind much. You may to-day, but you'll become accustomed to it very soon. And it is important. Some one else might do it, but it will help your own understanding of the subject, make your equipment that much better. It's a great thing for you to have Dr. Parkman's help. And he is so pleased with your progress. He told me the other day that he thought it absolutely phenomenal the way you were getting on." "Did he?" she asked eagerly, for she had learned to seize upon all which would buoy her up. "We all think so," he replied earnestly. "Even Mr. Willard, who, as you may have observed, is not an enthusiast, said the other day that you were becoming really useful." She brightened, and then laughed. She had never supposed she would be inordinately pleased to have a man like Mr. Willard say she was really useful. "While Mr. Beason went so far as to assert that you had a general intelligence not unlike that of a man." She laughed heartily at that. "Well, I'm afraid they won't think I have the nerve or sense of a man when I get in the operating room this afternoon," she said with a wry little face.