It is impossible to describe the importance of such experiences as these in forming the character of the young girl’s power of resource, and wealth of self-reliance and practical experience.  Sometimes in houses where she would have felt at least liberty to go only as spectator and scholar of medicine, Dr. Leslie insisted upon establishing her for a few days as chief nurse and overseer, and before Nan had been at work many months her teacher found her of great use, and grew more proud and glad day by day as he watched her determination, her enthusiasm, and her excellent progress.  Over and over again he said to himself, or to her, that she was doing the work for which nature had meant her, and when the time came for her to go away from Oldfields, it seemed more impossible than it ever had before that he should get on without her, at home, or as an independent human being, who was following reverently in the path he had chosen so many years before.  For her sake he had reached out again toward many acquaintances from whom he had drifted away, and he made many short journeys to Boston or to New York, and was pleased at his hearty welcome back to the medical meetings he had hardly entered during so many years.  He missed not a few old friends, but he quickly made new ones.  He was vastly pleased when the younger men seemed glad to hear him speak, and it was often proved that either through study or experience he had caught at some fresh knowledge of which his associates were still ignorant.  He had laughingly accused himself of being a rusty country doctor and old fogy who had not kept up with the times; but many a letter followed him home, with thanks for some helpful suggestion or advice as to the management of a troublesome case.  He was too far away to give room for any danger of professional jealousy, or for the infringement of that ever lengthening code of etiquette so important to the sensitive medical mind.  Therefore he had only much pleasure and a fine tribute of recognition and honor, and he smiled more than once as he sat in the quiet Oldfields study before the fire, and looked up at Captain Finch’s little ship, and told Nan of his town experiences, not always omitting, though attempting to deprecate, the compliments, in some half-hour when they were on peculiarly good terms with each other.  And Nan believed there could be no better doctor in the world, and stoutly told him so, and yet listened only half-convinced when he said that he had a great mind to go to town and open an office, and make a specialty of treating diseases of the heart, since everybody had a specialty nowadays.  He never felt so ready for practice as now, but Nan somehow could not bear the thought of his being anywhere but in his home.  For herself, she would have been ready to venture anything if it would further her ever-growing purpose; but that Dr. Leslie should begin a new career or contest with the world seemed impossible.  He was not so strong as he used to