and if his eye be single his whole body may yet be full of light.
In any case the closing words of S. J.-B.’s ‘balance sheet’ are significant enough,—
“Comes—mediately—from L.E.S.”!
CHAPTER XVI
GOING HOME
It was in the course of this summer of 1868 that S. J.-B. realized her earnest wish to welcome her friend Dr. Lucy Sewall in England. She had raised great expectations among her friends, but, notwithstanding this, the visitor’s sweetness and grace won all hearts. “That woman is fit to be the apostle of a great movement,” Dr. T. W. Jex-Blake had said when he first saw her photograph, “with a face at once so strong and so tender.” And a closer acquaintance only served to confirm this judgment.
It is impossible to exaggerate the pride with which S. J.-B. took “the Doctor” everywhere, in a world that knew not the “sweet girl graduate” of the present day, and showed her off—for choice in a pretty pale-blue frock—with secret triumph to the friends who were expecting something very masculine and aggressive. Quite a number of sick people—Mrs. Unwin among the number—were eagerly waiting to consult her: and many were the requests that she would come and settle in England.
What Mr. Jex-Blake thought of her may be gathered from the following most characteristic note written a month or two later to his daughter:
“13 Sussex Square,
Brighton.
2nd August 1868.