THE HOPE SCHOLARSHIP
The month of August brought some rest and refreshment, though S. J.-B.
remained in Edinburgh to “coach” for the Matriculation Examination. Mrs.
Burn Murdoch put her spacious and comfortable house for a little time at
the solitary student’s disposal, and, to S. J.-B.’s great joy, Miss Du
Pre came to visit her.
There were delightful excursions up the Forth, through the Trossachs,
and even farther afield, and S. J.-B. spent what is now known as a week-
end, at his country-place, with Mr. Findlay of the _Scotsman_, and his
wife. One realizes by many little indications how her views on the whole
question of women were becoming explicit. In the course of her visit,
her host showed her letters he had received from a clever American
woman—a journalist of sorts, apparently—in the course of which she asked
him to “help the little woman,” “the wee bit thing.” “When _will_ women
learn,” says S. J.-B., “if they claim to stand on common ground at all,
to ‘stand upright,’ to ask _only_ ‘fair field and no favour’!”
On October 10th she moved into No. 15 Buccleuch Place, “the house nice,
airy, wholesome, roomy,—rent, taxes and all probably £45,” and, on the
following day Miss Pechey lunched with her. A week later S. J.-B. sums
the new comrade up:
“I think her strong, ready-handed, with ‘faculty,’ great ability,
resolution, judgment; great calmness and quiet of manner and action,
and probably strength of feeling; good taste, good manner; very
pleasant face; rather good feet and hands; considerable sense of
humour; lots of energy and interest in things,—witness dissecting the
slugs, keeping caterpillars, etc. In fine, as good an ally and
companion as could well be had.”
She had occasion to add considerably to this estimate as life went on,
but in no wise to subtract from it.
Meanwhile Mrs. Evans had resolved to throw in her lot with the little
band, and S. J.-B. was coaching her in Arithmetic. Miss Chaplin
(afterwards the wife of Professor Ayrton) had also joined their ranks,
and it was a gallant and creditable little phalanx that made its way up
to the University on October 19th to undergo the Matriculation
Examination.
Of course they all passed, and passed far above the average, though
there was one “narrow squeak” in Arithmetic. They were all cultivated
women, all on their mettle, and the result was scarcely more than might
reasonably have been anticipated. “We believe,—” as a local paper had
occasion to say, after a similar result some ten months later,
“We believe that these results prove, not that women’s capacities are
better than those of men,—a thing that few people would assert,—but
that these women who are devoting themselves to obtain, in spite of
all difficulties, a thorough knowledge of their profession, are far
more thoroughly in earnest than most of the men are, and that their
ultimate success is certain in proportion. Nor would we omit the
inference that, this being so, those who wantonly throw obstacles in
the way of this gallant little band, incur a proportionately heavy
responsibility, as wanting not only in the spirit of chivalry, but
even in the love of fair play, which we should be sorry to think
wanting in any Briton.”[56]
Footnote 56:
_Daily Review_, Aug. 5, 1870.
It was natural, however, that friends and well-wishers should be not a
little elated. Here is one of many delightful letters:
“Oct. 22, 1869.
MY DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
This is just one word of warmest congratulation from us both to
you and the other ladies. We are rejoicing more than I can tell you
over the results of the examination. I have been a prisoner today with
a severe cold, or I should have been unable to rest until I had shaken
hands with you. Shall you be at home any time tomorrow after one
o’clock? If so, I shall like to come and see you and Miss Pechey.
Do send me a line to tell me if you are as happy as I fancy you.
Yours faithfully,
E. ROSALINE MASSON.
Mr. Masson was very much gratified by the papers of the ladies. They
fully justified his highest hopes.”
From diary:
“Tuesday, Nov. 2nd. ‘The deed—of life—was done!’—This morning, 11.30
a.m., I, S. L. J.-B., first of all women, matriculated as ‘Civis
Academiae Edinensis!’—Tonight for the first time 5 women are
undergraduates!—Hurrah!
‘With exactness grinds He all.’”
“I do indeed congratulate you undergraduates with all my heart,” wrote
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who had now settled in London. “It seems to
me the grandest success that women have yet achieved in England; it is
the great broad principle established that conducts to every noble
progress.
I feel as if I _must_ come up to Edinburgh in the course of the
winter, to see and bless the class! Perhaps towards the close of the
term would be best,—advise me.”
So began a winter’s work that for most, if not all, of the women
students, was an experience of extraordinary interest and happiness. S.
J.-B. and Edith Pechey had settled together in Buccleuch Place, and the
house was a _rendezvous_ for a choice little circle. It would be
difficult to say which of the two proved the greater attraction to their
friends. Miss Pechey was younger, more adaptable, less obviously
alarming, though possibly more critical really, in proportion as she had
seen less of life. The reader is already aware that S. J.-B., though a
most interesting person to live with, was not by any means always an
easy person to live with, particularly when she was overworked and
overstrained. For her friends as well as herself it was sometimes a
question—in her own significant words—of, “Ware crash!” Moreover,
although she often gave to others the advice,—“Glissez, mortels:
n’appuyez pas!”, she not infrequently failed to act on it herself: she
still, as when a child, staked her happiness too readily on matters that
might better have been regarded as trifles: and this is a characteristic
that becomes a more serious factor in domestic and social life as the
years go on. On the other hand, when she really “let herself go” in her
most intimate circle, there was no one like her. The diary and the
letters give scarcely an indication of the sense of humour and fun that
were so ready to bubble over into real whole-hearted laughter. The eyes
so familiar with sorrow could still sparkle with merriment like a
child’s, and, when anything struck her as irresistibly preposterous or
comical, she had a way of “tossing them up to the ceiling and catching
them again” that was a joy to behold. Increasingly as life went on, she
was a touchstone on which to test the things that might be said, the
stories that might be told. She could enjoy a joke that would have
shocked many women of her generation; but, as her Mother had said long
before, “anything impure ran off her mind like quicksilver,” and she was
a past master in the art of calling home a conversation that was
lingering too long in permissible bye-ways.
More than this,—even at the time of which we are writing, she was one of
those with whom people know instinctively that it is safe to speak, not
only of the great things of life, but of the disgraceful things, or the
small disconcerting things that want to be looked at in an atmosphere of
greatness. She was a Mother Confessor to many. “Now straight into the
fire!” she says in her diary of certain letters she had received; and
the smoke of that sacrifice meant something, for—born chronicler as she
was—it was pain and grief to her to destroy a letter at any time.
She was particularly happy that winter term. On the last night of the
year she writes in her diary:
“11.30 p.m. The long tangle of accounts unravelled at last!—‘after
long travail, good repose!’
In more senses than one.
Nine years since that look from the window,—‘And may the New Year
cherish.’
Since then I suppose no such (visibly) important year in my life. One
very dear friend won,—one strong ally,—Edinburgh opened!—What if one
_is_ a little tired? ‘After long travail good repose!’
I see that a year ago I thought there were no hopes ‘now bright,’—and
‘an hour of joy I knew not was winging its silent flight.’ Indeed the
next six months did cut out their own work.
The year has been glorious in many ways.
The chief point of pain....”
The chief point of pain was the fear that she was fickle,—that the new
interests and friendships were making her disloyal to the strange
unearthly friendship for Octavia Hill. Whether this would have been
blameworthy is a question that it is unnecessary to discuss, as the
contingency never arose. The flame may have flickered and sunk low, but
it continued to burn for another forty years. Then “after long travail
good repose.”
And in any case she was very happy that winter term. Strangely
enough,[57] her family were thoroughly sympathetic with her aims.
Discussing the volume of Essays to which she had contributed, her
brother wrote:
“Miss Cobbe was very vigorous and suggestive: might have been longer.
So might yours without any risk of the interest flagging; and more
details of fact would (I think) have driven the nail deeper in the
Philistine’s understanding.... I should say that Mrs. Butler’s and
yours will hit the public hardest; most dissimilar as they are.... On
the main question, for you personally, I am very glad that you are on
the medical rails. They are real and solid and really lead somewhere.
There is more specialty about them than in the somewhat vague
educational line. They belong to an old strong well-paid profession.
They tend to the alleviation of intense human misery; and that for a
large class of delicate cases women when properly trained are the
right physicians I have felt for years and feel increasingly. Stick to
them head and hands and feet. Don’t be drawn aside into tempting but
irrelevant bye-ways. You will be very useful and very happy in your
work: and to have helped to bring about the result that for the years
to come girls shall not be without the pale of professional and
University education,—shall not waste their best years in chafing at
want of elbow room at home—will be a great and additional
satisfaction. Nothing succeeds like success, and what you have got to
do is to prove that a Lady Physician can be trustworthy and a success.
Do nothing but your work, and you will do your work well. Of course
get hold of the widest and deepest Professional education within
reach.
Your aff. brother,
T. W. J.-B.”
Footnote 57:
“Strangely” when compared with the families of her contemporaries.
“When I told Mamma I had got my certificate,” said a former fellow-
student, “she said ‘Have you?’ When I told Uncle, he said ‘What good
is it?’ When I told Emily, she said, ‘I am very glad to hear it, but I
am very much surprised.’”
This last point, on which the writer touches so lightly, was precisely
the rub.
“Everything is just as we would have it,” wrote S. J.-B. at this time
to Dr. Sewall, “but that Professors are not _compelled_ to lecture to
us. We have already arranged for two courses for this winter,—5
lectures a week each,—Physiology and Chemistry; and we are now
arranging for Anatomy, both in lectures and dissecting.
As we have to make entirely separate arrangements, the Anatomy will be
very expensive,—about £100 probably for us five,—and of this I shall
pay about one-third, as two of the students are not at all rich.
Still it is worth any money to get the thing done, and I am only
thankful that I _can_ spend the money. Of course I borrow it from my
Mother.[58] My fees for this year will be about £55 or £60,—about
$400,—for the 6 months.
I have made up my mind to spend if needful £1000 on this business. I
feel sure that one does more good in thus concentrating one’s energies
and one’s funds to get one thing done thoroughly, than in frittering
away lots of small sums in charity,—Don’t you think so? It _is_ a
grand thing to enter the very first British University ever opened to
women, isn’t it?
My darling, you _must_ come and see us this summer, for, as I tell the
other students here, the whole thing is due to _you_ primarily;—when
they say that they feel grateful to me for having worked for this, I
say, ‘Thank Dr. Sewall,—she made me care for Medicine, and resolve
that a _thorough_ education should be open to Englishwomen.’ So I told
Dr. Blackwell too when she said something pretty to me. She is _very_
pleased about Edinburgh.
Well, dear child, I have settled down now for the winter in my little
new house. It amuses me to hear of your expenses in furnishing. The
_whole_ I have spent is under £35,—about $200,—and yet we are very
comfortable!
Miss Pechey is very nice and very clever,—you will like her very much,
and she is excellent company....
Our classes begin on Nov. 3rd. I am _very_ busy till then.
Your very aff.
S. L. J.-B.”
Footnote 58:
Money borrowed from Mrs. Jex-Blake was refunded as strictly as if it
had been borrowed from a banker.
Busy indeed she was with the great task of finding lecturers. The
University of Edinburgh still stood foursquare, and the Professors sat
in their comfortable chairs, lecturing to enormous classes of male
students. Looking at the question as a sheer matter of business, one
asks what inducement had these men to lecture to a handful of women
students? S. J.-B., Mrs. Thorne and the others might struggle and pinch
to raise the fees of a dozen or more, but what was that to men of
assured wealth and position?—men who looked upon a Scots professorship
as the topmost rung on the ladder of comfortable success,—men to whom
leisure and peace seemed almost a matter of right, an essential part of
the prize they had drawn in the lottery of life? Why should they double
their work for the sake of this paltry pittance? It was not to be
expected that they should have a great enthusiasm for the cause. How
could they? They might, it is true, have been possessed of a high sense
of the trust conferred on them by their position: but is such a sense in
any sphere of life the possession of more than the choicest few?
As regarded the class in Chemistry, everything had gone with delightful
smoothness. On July 10th, S. J.-B. had written in her diary, “Dr. Crum
Brown agrees,—not a word of demur as to fees,—good fellow,” and a few
days later she had received a letter from Dresden in which he said:
“I am convinced that the experiment must be made, and do not wish to
place any unnecessary obstacles in the way. I therefore cordially
agree to your proposal, on the understanding that the consent of the
University Court is obtained, and that the course be conducted in the
Chemical Class-room of the University, and be in all respects the same
as the ordinary course of Chemistry.”
So far as the work was concerned, one is glad to think that his
generosity met with its reward. All the teacher in him must have
rejoiced in the mettle of the new students. Miss Pechey, in particular,
simply fell upon Chemistry and proceeded to make it her own. In the
house of which the furnishing had cost £35, she and S. J.-B. rigged up
some kind of laboratory, and carried on experiments with a keenness that
to the stern advocate of “limited liability” might well have endangered
their success in class examinations.
When the winter session came to an end in March, however, it was found
that Miss Pechey stood third in the entire list, and was really first of
the first-year students,—two of the men having attended the class
before. There would have been nothing calamitous in this state of
affairs, had it not chanced that there were certain small scholarships
involved. A previous Professor of Chemistry in the University—Dr. Hope—
had made the experiment of delivering a course of lectures to ladies,
and had devoted the proceeds—amounting to about £1000—to the founding of
four Hope Scholarships, which entitled the winners to the free use of
the College Laboratory. What this privilege would have meant to a born
student like Miss Pechey one can easily imagine, but, as mixed classes
were forbidden, there might have been a difficulty—scarcely
insurmountable—about her making full use of it.
Hitherto, as we have seen, the Professor had treated the women
generously. We know that he bore them no grudge; and it is absurd to
suppose that he had any wish to be unjust to an engaging, deft-handed
girl, with a calm strong face, and a brain which he must have already
seen to be far above the average in either sex,—a girl, moreover, who
was frankly appreciative of her good fortune in having so able a man as
her teacher.
One can only conjecture the motives and the advice that must have
influenced him in the decision to withhold even the name of Hope Scholar
from this woman, and to give it to the man who stood beneath her on the
list. In explaining his position, the Professor said that, having
studied at a different hour, she was not a member of the Chemistry
Class; but at the same time he awarded to her the official bronze medal
of the University, to which she could only lay claim as a member of that
class; and, in the published list of honours, he put her name and those
of the other women in the place to which their marks entitled them.
It was a clumsy though well-meaning compromise, and only led to greater
difficulties farther on. Having said that the women were not members of
the Chemistry Class, how could he give them certificates of attendance
on that class? It was obviously impossible, so he offered them written
certificates of having attended “a ladies’ class in the University,”—
certificates absolutely worthless from the point of view of professional
examination. One is reminded of the strawberry jam labels which Mark
Twain offered to the conductor of a continental railway when his ticket
was worn out; but, unfortunately, the Registrar of a great University is
not to be appeased with strawberry jam labels.
In truth the Professor had done the cause an incalculable service. A
howl of indignation went up over the whole country. The _Times_, the
_Spectator_,—a faithful supporter from the first,—even the _British
Medical Journal_, were genuinely roused. The Universities and the
Profession had been governed by a spirit of Conservatism, of Trades-
unionism, of which this was but a mild example; but now at last that
spirit had become explicit: here was the priceless desideratum of the
tangible grievance: and it was just like life—just the irony of fate—
that the man who provoked the outburst, the man who had to suffer, was
not one of the bitter opponents: he was, in his own way, the friend and
helper of the struggling cause. He had taught the women Chemistry, and
he had taught them well; and that was the main thing, even though a
bronze medal, and a few “strawberry jam labels” were—for five people in
deadly earnest—to be the only outward and visible signs of six months’
hard work.
The matter was referred to the Senatus, who decided by a majority of one
that Miss Pechey was not entitled to the Hope Scholarship, and (on the
motion of Professor P. G. Tait) also by a majority of one, that the
women should have the ordinary class certificates. So the women grasped
the substance, if they did lose the shadow.
“I agree with you that the one vote stultifies the other,” wrote
Professor Masson, “and I think people are seeing this. At the time I
made up my mind that the first vote must carry the other unfavourably
with it; but it was not for me to keep the Senatus consistent, and,
when Tait announced his view, I grasped at the unexpected accident and
seconded his motion.”
But the outcry was not stilled. In those days the general public knew
little of the difference between one certificate and another; but they
had some idea of what was meant by the losing of a scholarship, and Miss
Pechey became the recipient of an amount of condolence that was
positively embarrassing when compared with the extent of the injury
inflicted. The skilled appreciation of the situation, however, was
delightful. This was the tribute of the _British Medical Journal_:
“Whatever may be our views regarding the desirability of ladies
studying medicine, the University of Edinburgh professed to open its
gates to them on equal terms with the other students; and, unless some
better excuse be forthcoming in explanation of the decision of the
Senatus, we cannot help thinking that the University has done no less
an injustice to itself than to one of its most distinguished
students.”[59]
One can imagine the effect of criticism such as this on some of the
professors. Here was a tiresome muddle from which it was difficult to
see a dignified exit. What wonder if many took the cheap and obvious
course of exclaiming, “The _woman_ that Thou gavest me!—she is at the
bottom of it all?” So far as the explanation went, it was perfectly
true: and of course only a few of the pundits saw today with the eyes of
tomorrow; only a few realized that the difficulty that was worrying them
was a part of a world-wide upheaval involving the whole human race.
Of course there were those who, without taking any extreme view, were
admirably sane and dignified. Instance the following letter from
Professor Fleeming Jenkin:
“April 5th, 1870.
DEAR MADAM,
I regret that I shall be unavoidably absent on Saturday next,
or, as far as might have been possible, I should have supported Miss
Pechey’s claims.
I regret my absence the less, however, as it seems to me that the
legal question of a particular reward is of far less consequence than
the fact of the position which you and Miss Pechey have taken in the
class.
Accept my very hearty congratulations and
Believe me,
Yours truly,
FLEEMING JENKIN.
Miss Jex-Blake.”
Footnote 59:
_Brit. Med. Journal_, April 16th, 1870.
There was a question of referring the matter to the University Court,
but one is glad to think that wiser counsels prevailed. Miss Pechey had
gone to her home in the country, and was listening to the nightingales.
“Thank you for Masson’s letter,” she writes to S. J.-B. “He is a grand
fellow. Wilson has sent me the minutes of the Senatus meeting about
the scholarship. I suppose I ought to write to him. I wish you were
here to tell me what to do.
You understand that I leave you to do as is thought best about the
scholarship,—only remember that my own judgment—apart from personal
feeling—is against appealing, and that I do not wish to do so unless
our friends are very decisively of opinion that we ought to.”
Well might Miss Pechey say, “He is a grand fellow.” Professor Masson had
taken up the cause of the woman as wholeheartedly as if it had been a
matter of vital import to himself. At the next meeting of the General
Council of the University, he moved (seconded by Professor Balfour)
that, instead of having separate instruction, women should be admitted
to the ordinary classes of the University. The original draft of the
motion was as follows:
“That, as the present arrangements for the medical instruction of
women in the University impose great and unnecessary inconveniences on
the women who are students, and also on Professors, and may, if
continued, even nullify the resolution of the University admitting
women to the study of medicine [and as it will not be to the credit of
the University that it should pretend to do a thing and not do
it],[60] the General Council recommend to the University Court that
women desiring to study medicine be admitted to the medical classes as
other students are, and on the same terms, except in cases where the
Court may see special reasons why the instruction should be separate.”
“The motion is longish,” he says, “but I thought it well to have
something which, when printed, would explain itself and attract
attention of members of Council.... I am the more convinced that we do
right in moving the General Council as above, even if we should lose,
because I distinctly perceive a relapse on the part of those who had
merely acquiesced, and a kind of exulting feeling on the part of
others that the experience of the session may be pleaded in proof that
the University perpetrated a troublous blunder when it admitted Eve’s
sex at all. This state of feeling will be but temporary; but it is
time that the opposed forces should meet in full conflict on the
mixed-classes question.”
Footnote 60:
The words in brackets were omitted from the resolution, but introduced
in the speech supporting it.
“Full conflict,” indeed, it proved. The opponents brought forward
arguments that called forth an indignant interruption from the Professor
of Moral Philosophy (Dr. Calderwood); and the _Times_, while
disapproving of mixed classes, stated in a leading article:
“We cannot sufficiently express the indignation with which we read
such language, and we must say that it is the strongest argument
against the admission of young ladies to the Edinburgh medical
classes, that they would attend the lectures of Professors capable of
talking in this strain.”[61]
The motion was lost by 47 votes to 58.
“No speaking on our side could have changed the vote,” wrote Professor
Masson, “those present were all predetermined. Crum Brown did well,
and administered a proper reproof to L. Struthers was present and
voted with us; so did Nicolson (who was quite in earnest when the time
came), and Dr. Craufurd, who avows himself a convert. On the other
hand, Wilson, Bennett, Charteris and Tait, of our side, were absent,
reducing our number somewhat. People today are consoling me—for I was
really downcast—by saying the result was a success in its kind, and an
omen of final success when the thing comes up again, as it must. All
very well; but how shall I console _you_? What are _you_ to do this
year? The only thing I disliked in Crum Brown’s speech was his opening
statement that he thought the motion perhaps premature, the time not
having elapsed for the experiment of the other method. Premature! This
in face of his own refusal to continue, and in face of his subsequent
declaration that the existing method is impracticable! Still he said
and did well. What shall I say but that my heart is sore for your
immediate discomfiture? Time—a year or two—will rectify the thing
generally, here and elsewhere; but how you are to get on with us is
the question. Christison, who draws Turner, Lister, and Sanders (L. is
nothing) with him, seems determined to get rid of you, and trusts to
effecting this by mere continuance of the present arrangement. Whether
you can wriggle on with us by any ingenuity in the hope of beating him
is for your consideration. Would it might be so!
Ever yours truly,
DAVID MASSON.”
Footnote 61:
The _Times_, April 25th, 1870.
The view that the result of the motion was a success in its kind proved
to be a general one, and the matter was discussed at great length by
newspapers, lay, medical and religious.
“There is no possible reason,” said the _Guardian_,[62] “why a very
large proportion of instruction may not be given with perfect
propriety to men and women together; but there are clearly some parts
in a medical course which cannot be so treated, and there ought to be
no difficulty whatever in making arrangements for these. To provide
separate lectures for a few special occasions is a very different
thing, both in the matter of convenience and expense, from insisting
on having two distinct and separate courses throughout in every
department.... Professor Masson’s motion was defeated, but by a
majority so small—eleven in a meeting of a hundred and five—that its
success at some future time seems certain. Let the ladies only add to
the exercise of one quality, with which the world credits them, that
of patience, another, which is supposed to be a less common attribute
of their sex, perseverance, and they will assuredly gain their point.”
“The female students almost deserve this rebuff,” said the
_Spectator_,[63] “for making the concessions they have done to English
prudery, concessions not made either in France, Austria, or the United
States. The only safe ground for them to stand on is that science is
of no sex, and cannot be indelicate unless made so of _malice
prepense_, and that by the very conditions of the profession the
modesty of ignorance must be replaced by the modesty of pure intent.”
Footnote 62:
April 27th, 1870.
Footnote 63:
April 23rd, 1870.
It is not to be supposed that the women students were fortified by a
unanimous chorus of journalistic support: far from it: some six or seven
months later the _Spectator_ strove to understand “the bitter and, so
far as we know, the unprecedented malignity with which women who aspire
to be Doctors are pursued by the literary class.”
One does not wish to dwell on this. It was simply bound to be. As Sir
James Stansfeld said seven years later in reviewing the whole movement:
“It is one of the lessons of human progress that when the time for a
reform has come you cannot resist it, though, if you make the attempt,
what you may do is to widen its character or precipitate its advent.
Opponents, when the time has come, are not merely dragged at the
chariot wheels of progress—they help to turn them. The strongest
force, whichever way it seem to work, does most to aid.”
It is the more pleasing, however, to record the sane and wholesome view
taken from the first by the leading responsible papers, including
_Punch_.
“I am very vexed about the General Council,” wrote Miss Pechey from
her home; “but it’s no use worrying,—at least so the nightingale tells
me. She sang two hours at my bedroom window last night, and said all
sorts of pretty things. I wish I could bring her to Edinburgh with me,
but she wouldn’t like it; besides they are a very old family, and have
lived in the place from the time of the Britons, so she wouldn’t like
to move.
Papa did not write to the _Scotsman_. I knew he wouldn’t unless
someone told him what to say; and I believe, if the truth were told,
he still has some lurking prejudice against mixed classes. He isn’t a
bit scientific, never notices the butterflies and beetles in a walk
unless I point them out to him, and there are lovely ones now,
peacocks and brimstones and tortoiseshells.”
It is clear that just then Miss Pechey was having a very good time. She
was the woman of the moment, a lion abroad as well as in her country
home, and she had the courage and the sense to enjoy the position
quietly and without making a fuss. Moreover both she and S.J.-B. were
human enough to appreciate the situation all the more because, from the
ordinary point of view, the heroine was a truly pretty girl, as
disarming as heroine well could be.