“Ah, but you are an infatuated auntie, you know, and have always spoiled me, as papa did; but aren’t you anxious to know what I am going to be?”
“Something quixotic, Millie, to suit our surroundings. It is the couleur locale which has dazzled you; the romance of the Alhambra is too much for you. Is it a novelist or a poet? Don’t dear; the market is overstocked. Now, domestic service offers a grand field.”
“But I don’t feel it to be my vocation. I shall set to work to revolutionise the system of our great hospitals. I have seen enough to-day to convince me that, as at present constituted, they do as much harm as good.”
“Revolutionise the hospitals! Isn’t that rather ‘a large order?’”
“Weaker women than I have done greater things than this; and then remember, auntie dear, the lines—
‘And none are strong but who confess
With happy skill that they are weak.’
Besides, don’t you think the public is almost ready for a revolution on this question?”
“You know, Mildred, my opinion; but I never could see my way clear to any interference with hospitals. It is a terrible responsibility, don’t you think?”
“Poor papa has often declared to me that the public would one day wake up to the fact that the hospital was one of the great shams of the time.”