The Class-Book of Chemistry. 61 



At last, a reaction came, and he slowly lifted himself 

 out of the slough of despond. To this one or two 

 favouring circumstances contributed. His sister se- 

 cured what for those times was a well-paid engage- 

 ment as teacher, with quite enough incidental leisure 

 to act as his amanuensis and reader. His brother 

 Earle sent good news of his prosperity in California, 

 and as an earnest thereof inclosed a generous remit- 

 tance. Dr. Elliott, who had never wavered in his 

 sincere assurances that his patient would ultimately 

 recover, offered him a lodging at his office, where he 

 could practice sundry economies. The office con- 

 tained chemical apparatus available for Miss You- 

 mans's experiments. In the district school at Milton, 

 three years before, she had gained a slight experience 

 in chemical work, using the water pail as a trough, and 

 collecting gases in bottles, but she had little knowl- 

 edge and less skill in handling apparatus. Her brother 

 had long wished that her chemical education should 

 proceed further, but where was the opportunity ? It 

 came at last through Dr. Antisell, an Irish refugee of 

 '48, who had come to New York and established a 

 laboratory as a teacher of chemistry at the corner of 

 Elm and Grand Streets. He had enough of the spirit 

 of revolution and reform to open the first laboratory 

 in the city that admitted women. Every Saturday 

 Miss Youmans spent several hours at work under the 

 doctor's eye. In the evening she described and ex- 

 made his eyes worse. When at last he did in a measure recover sight, the 

 medical treatment was just the same that it had been from the first. The 

 exhilaration attendant upon the success of his literary work was the begin- 

 ning of the amendment. He believed, and the doctor was sure, that the 

 same might have happened years before if an evil fate had not waited 

 upon his first efforts at self-support. 



