"Miss Maclean is an extremely clever girl," said Miss Warden.
"When I first came to this school," said Miss Philips, "I wrote to my people that women medical students were very much like other folks, but that one or two were really splendid women; and I instanced Miss Maclean."
"The proof of the student is the examination."
"That is not true—except very broadly. You passed your Intermediate at the first go-off, but none of us would think of comparing you to Miss Maclean."
"Thank you," was the calm reply. "I always did appreciate plain speaking. It is quite true that I never went in for very wide reading, nor for the last sweet thing in theories; but I have a good working knowledge of my subjects all the same—at least I had at the time I passed."
"Miss Maclean is too good a student; that is what is the matter with her."
The dissector of Meckel's ganglion laughed. "Miss Maclean is awfully kind and helpful," she said; "but I shall never forget the day when I asked her to show me the nerve to the vastus externus on her own dissection. She drew aside a muscle with hooks, and opened up a complicated system of telephone wires that made my hair stand on end."
"I know. For one honest nerve with a name, she shows you a dozen that are nameless; and the number of abnormalities that she contrives to find is simply appalling."
"In other words, she has a spirit of genuine scientific research," said Miss Philips. "It does not say much for the examiners that such a woman should fail."
A student who had been studying a brain in the corner of the room, looked up at this moment, tossing back a mass of short dark hair from her refined and intellectual face.