One wonders as one reads the papers how many of them knew what their “powers,”—what the legal powers of the University—really were?—how many of them really wished to know? There was a comfortable conviction in the back of their minds that insuperable difficulties lay shrouded in those unprobed depths. In the meantime why not show a little kindness to a gallant girl who was as modest as anyone could be in formulating so outrageous a demand, and whose pleading—so it has been said—would have “wiled the bird from the bough”? It was after she was gone that the real horror of the situation came home to them, and that they fell back again with relief on the thought of those unprobed depths,—the legal powers of the University. It would all be very ordinary, and sometimes rather depressing, reading, were it not that Professor Masson and some of the others, when they gave her their provisional support, really meant exactly what they would have meant in giving their support to a man—no more and no less. Their own principle, their own righteousness was involved; they were quite prepared to see women students—if so it was to be—in the University quadrangle and class-rooms; and they meant to do what in them lay to give this woman a fighting chance. CHAPTER III SUCCESS? Meanwhile Miss Elizabeth Garrett was providing in her own career the very example that was needed to clinch the argument. After much arduous work and lavish expenditure of money on special classes, she had obtained the “L.S.A.,” a licence to practise from the Society of Apothecaries,[49] and good use she had made of the platform thus gained. Henceforth no one could deny that an Englishwoman had the physique and the wit to study, “qualify,” and practise Medicine,—yes, even to get her full share of patients. It was scarcely to be expected that Miss Garrett would rest content without a University degree, but she considered that the time was not ripe for the agitation of the question in England, and she had little sympathy with S. J.-B.’s efforts in Edinburgh. None the less her successful career was a more valuable argument than her support would have been,—even if, at the moment, she had not been too fully occupied elsewhere to enter into the question at all. Footnote 49: After Miss Garrett had obtained her diploma, the Society of Apothecaries passed a resolution forbidding students henceforth to receive any part of their education privately, thus making it impossible even for a woman of means to follow in her steps. On March 21st, S. J.-B. wrote to Dr. Sewall: “I have two nice little bits of news about Miss Garrett. One is that the Princess Louise went to see her, and, after enquiring about the medical prospects of women, expressed strong hopes of their complete success. This is really worth a great deal, and I hope you will have too much sense to sneer at it.