He said to himself, "What is she? A
_lusus naturoe?"_
When the tea came, and she had sipped a little, she perked up
wonderfully. Said she, "Oh, the magic effect of food eaten judiciously!
Now I am a lioness, and do not fear the future. Yes; I will tell you my
story--and, if you think you are going to hear a love-story, you will be
nicely caught--ha-ha! No, _sir;"_ said she, with rising fervor and
heightened color, "you will hear a story the public is deeply interested
in and does not know it; ay, a story that will certainly be referred to
with wonder and shame, whenever civilization shall become a reality, and
law cease to be a tool of injustice and monopoly." She paused a moment;
then said a little doggedly, as one used to encounter prejudice, "I am a
medical student; a would-be doctor."
"Ah!"
"And so well qualified by genuine gifts, by study from my infancy, by
zeal, quick senses, and cultivated judgment, that, were all the leading
London physicians examined to-morrow by qualified persons at the same
board as myself, most of those wealthy practitioners--not all, mind you--
would cut an indifferent figure in modern science compared with me, whom
you have had to rescue from starvation--because I am a woman.
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