Her work interested her. To her mind, there was a great charm in seeing
the neat economy with which her body was constructed. She enjoyed the
lectures keenly; but the clinics had proved to be her undoing. At the
first one she had attended, she had ignominiously fainted away. There was
a certain satisfaction in feeling that she had drawn upon herself at
least one-half as much attention as the more legitimate object of the
gathering; however, she was sternly resolved never to repeat the
experience, and she accordingly became a walking arsenal of restoratives,
whenever a clinic was on hand. In a nutshell, Phebe found theory far more
attractive than practice. Surgery was a grand and helpful profession;
but, under some circumstances, it was not neat, and Phebe must have
neatness at any cost.
With her fellow-students she was quite unable to fraternize. For the most
part, they were older than herself, a body of enthusiastic, earnest women
who were ready to lay down their lives for their profession. Grave-eyed
and intent, they went through the day's routine with a cheery patience
under drudgery which showed the noble stuff of which they were made. They
looked askance at Phebe's grumblings, her fluctuating enthusiasm, her
hours of girlish frivolity and of pettish complaint. Among themselves,
they analyzed her; but they were unable to classify her.
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