Octavia's Pride; or, The Missing Witness — page 276: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

266 . OCTAVIA'S PRIDE. think you! when I seek for the light which the physicians of all lands ask and obtain—the benefit of older experience, of lecture and experi- ment room, the assistance of organized societies—they put me off. Because Iam more ignorant.and unpracticed than the other appli- cants? Nay. Ihave proved my competence as surgeon and physi- cian. Because my aim is low, my character unworthy? I tell you I have brought certificates of my respectability. I have maintained a true character, as becomes Doctor Morley’s pupil. But it is simply this—that Iam a woman! I sat, with my whole heart rising in scorn and indignation, the other day, while a circle of grave and learned physicians, themselves taking hold of every aid, lent to them by mu- tual explanation, and lecture, and society, while they voted down the application of a worthy and successful practitioner, who was not a man, for admittance into their society. Do.you blush for shame at their brutal selfishness and lordly love of power, as I did, when I tell you they rose in the noble, and dignified, and Christian act, to hurrah and shout their congratulations, because—they had voted a woman out! Is this the liberality, the generous magnanimity, which Doctor Morley taught me to look for in America? ‘< Dear friends, I am going back to Sydney, to do the best, with the limited means allowed a woman’s education, for Doctor Morley’s poor convict patients. Heaven bless you with the richest blessings of life! I shall write to you next from my old home in Sydney, where you will hear of a free dispensary at Doctor Morley’s house. ; ‘‘Eyver yours in love, J ANE. I need not say that neither Wilhelmine nor Maurice re- pented their hurried marriage. ‘Theirs was a noble, genial, and happy home. Lady Mary spent her days with them. Felix and Octavia were established in the next town, where the former went to work in an energetic and deter- mined manner, which augured well for the fulfillment of the general’s prophecy, that he would be the member for that, borough come ten years. It was while on a visit to them that Wilhelmine one day rushed away from the arm of her husband in the midst of a crowded street, and seized upon the hand of a jovial, con- tented-looking individual in blue clothes, and broad Panama hat. cS _comicboo nN mnt RA \ ' f