I had much rather know you well and happy there than see you ill and know you worried here. If they would only have the Cable, I think Boston no distance. I should certainly like the Cable,—but I don’t hear a word about it. Couldn’t you apply to Government?”
“Feb. 20th. I hope your medical education is progressing, and that you don’t addle your brains. I shall expect you to make something on the way home by your medical knowledge.”
“Mar. 5th. It is such a repose and joy to me to hear of your being occupied so usefully and happily, and feeling comparatively well, though I suspect sometimes my little one is a wee overdone.”
The medical study was more or less of a joke so far to her friends at home, and many are the enquiries as to when she means to return and go on with her life after this interesting digression.
“I am very glad you find things and people pleasant in America,” writes Mrs. Unwin. “I hope they won’t be so nice that they will tempt you to stay there very long, for I shall be very glad when I can think of you again without that great sea between us. I do so want a long talk with you about no end of things. I don’t think I ever wanted you more than when I was ill.”
And Mr. Unwin expressed the view of many when he wrote:
“If I told you of the estimate in which I hold the purpose to which you are devoting your life, you would suspect me of flattery, so I abstain; but, barring all that, your friends in England are in great need of you, and I think it is very horrid that you should leave them all, to whom you would be of infinite service, on God knows what outlandish errand. They all grudge you to Boston entirely, so pray be quick and come back.”
Dr. Sewall, on the other hand, had become not a little dependent on her competent helper, and, although this friendship too was not without the “cataracts and breaks” to which S. J.-B. so often refers in her diary, there is no doubt that the older and gentler woman found it not only a pleasure but a great asset. “How I wish I had you here: I do so want your strength! So few people are strong,” is a sentiment that recurs in her letters many times from now to the end of her life.
So in June 1866, S. J.-B. returned to England to see her parents, and to talk over the whole question of her future career with them and with other friends.
“Most people are much more in favour of Medicine than I expected,” she writes, “except Miss Garrett, who thinks me not specially suited, and E. S. M., who thinks it indecent of unmarried women knowing all about these things.”