She wanted to say to her that she could go down
again if she liked; but even to Miss Birdseye's unsophisticated mind
this scarcely appeared, as regards a guest, an adequate formula of
dismissal. She tried to bring the young Southerner out; she said to him
that she presumed they would have some entertainment soon--Mrs.
Farrinder could be interesting when she tried! And then she bethought
herself to introduce him to Doctor Prance; it might serve as a reason
for having brought her up. Moreover, it would do her good to break up
her work now and then; she pursued her medical studies far into the
night, and Miss Birdseye, who was nothing of a sleeper (Mary Prance,
precisely, had wanted to treat her for it), had heard her, in the
stillness of the small hours, with her open windows (she had fresh air
on the brain), sharpening instruments (it was Miss Birdseye's mild
belief that she dissected), in a little physiological laboratory which
she had set up in her back room, the room which, if she hadn't been a
doctor, might have been her "chamber," and perhaps was, even with the
dissecting, Miss Birdseye didn't know! She explained her young friends
to each other, a trifle incoherently, perhaps, and then went to stir up
Mrs.
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