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 an
absence of high aim. Somehow both our friends lost much of the feeling
that Nan was doing a peculiar thing, when they saw so many others
following the same path. And having seen Nan more than half-settled in
her winter quarters, and knowing that one or two of her former school
friends had given her a delighted and most friendly welcome, and
having made a few visits to the people whom he fancied would help her
in one way or another, Dr. Leslie said good-by, and turned his face
homeward, feeling more lonely than he had felt in a great many years
before.
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