"No, thank, you; I am only tired," said Lesley.
"You would like some tea, perhaps?"
"Thank you," said the girl, rather hesitatingly. Nobody drank tea at the convent, and in her visits to Lady Alice she had not cultivated a taste for it. "I think I would rather go to bed."
"You must have something to eat before you go," said Miss Brooke, drily. "Here, let me feel your pulse. Yes, you need food, and I'll send you up a soothing draught as well. You need not look so astonished, my dear: don't you know that I'm a doctor?"
"A doctor! You!" Lesley looked round the room as if seeking for some place in which to hide from such a monstrosity.
"Yes, a doctor—a lady doctor," said Miss Brooke, with grim but not unmirthful emphasis. "You never saw me before, did you? Well, I'm not in general practice just now; my health would not stand it, so I am keeping my brother's house instead; but I am fully qualified, my dear, I assure you, and can prescribe for you if you are ill as well as any physician in the land."
She laughed as she spoke, and there was a humorous twinkle in her shrewd, kindly eyes, which Lesley did not understand. As a matter of fact, her innocent horror and amaze tickled Miss Brooke immensely. It was evident that this girl, with her foreign, aristocratic, and Catholic training knew nothing at all of the strides that have of late been made in the direction of female emancipation; and her ignorance was amusing to Miss Brooke, who was one of the foremost champions of the woman's cause. Miss Sophia Brooke, whose name was on every committee under the sun, who spoke at meetings and wrote half a dozen letters after her name, to have a niece who had never met a lady doctor in her life before, and probably did not know anything at all about women's franchise! It was quite too funny, and Miss Brooke—or Doctor Brooke, as she liked better to be called—was genuinely amused. But it was not an amusing matter to Lesley, who felt as if the foundations of the solid world were shaking underneath her.
If she had heard of women doctors at all it was in terms of bitterest reprobation: she had been told that they were not persons of respectability, that they were "without the pale," and she had believed all she was told. And here she was, shut up for a year with a woman of the very class that she had been taught to reprobate—a woman, too, who, although no longer young, had a face which was pleasant to look upon, because it expressed refinement and kindliness as well as intellectual power, and whose dress, though plain, was severely neat, well-fitting, and of rich material. In fact, Miss Brooke was so unlike anything in the shape of womankind that Lesley had ever encountered, that the girl could only gaze at her in speechless amazement, and wonder whether she was expected to develop into something of the same sort!
She could not deny, however, that her aunt was very good-natured. Miss Brooke helped her to undress, put her to bed, unpacked her boxes in about half the time that a maid would have taken to do the work; then she brought her something to eat and drink, and waited on her with the care of a woman with a truly kindly heart. Lesley began to take courage and to ask questions.
"I suppose I shall see my father again to-morrow morning," she said.