If a young man plans the same course, everything conspires to help him and forward him, and the very fact of his having chosen one of the learned professions gives him a certain social preeminence and dignity.  But in the days of Nan’s student life it was just the reverse.  Though she had been directed toward such a purpose entirely by her singular talent, instead of by the motives of expediency which rule the decisions of a large proportion of the young men who study medicine, she found little encouragement either from the quality of the school or the interest of society in general.  There were times when she actually resented the prospect of the many weeks which she must spend in listening to inferior instruction before gaining a diploma, which was only a formal seal of disapproval in most persons’ eyes.  And yet, when she remembered her perfect certainty that she was doing the right thing, and remembered what renown some women physicians had won, and the avenues of usefulness which lay open to her on every side, there was no real drawing back, but rather a proud certainty of her most womanly and respectable calling, and a reverent desire to make the best use possible of the gifts God had certainly not made a mistake in giving her.  “If He meant I should be a doctor,” the girl told herself, “the best thing I can do is to try to be a good one.”

So Nan packed her boxes and said good-by to Mrs. Graham, who looked wistful and doubtful, but blessed her most heartily, saying she should miss her sadly in the winter.  And Marilla, who had unexpectedly reserved her opinion of late, made believe that she was very busy in the pantry, just as she had done when Nan was being launched for boarding-school.  She shook her own floury hands vigorously, and offered one at last, muffled in her apron, and wished our friend good luck, with considerable friendliness, mentioning that she should be glad if Nan would say when she wrote home what shapes they seemed to be wearing for bonnets in the city, though she supposed they would be flaunting for Oldfields anyway.  The doctor was going too, and they started for the station much too early for the train, since Dr. Leslie always suffered from a nervous dread of having an unavoidable summons to a distant patient at the last moment.

And when the examinations were over, and Nan had been matriculated, and the doctor had somewhat contemptuously overlooked the building and its capabilities, and had compared those students whom he saw with his remembrance of his own class, and triumphantly picked out a face and figure that looked hopeful here and there; he told himself that like all new growths it was feeble yet, and needed girls like his Nan, with high moral purpose and excellent capacity, who would make the college strong and to be respected.  Not such doctors as several of whom he reminded himself, who were disgracing their sex, but those whose lives were ruled by a pettiness of detail, a lack of power, and