CHAPTER XII.
BROADCLOTH AND CIVILIZATION.
Allowing for my inexperience in the use of the language, I prospered better than I had expected, and found, to my satisfaction, that I was by no means behind my French fellow-students in medical knowledge.

I passed through my preliminary examination with credit, and although Dr.Cheron was careful not to praise me too soon, I had reason to believe that he was satisfied with my progress.

My life, indeed, was now wholly given up to my work.

My country-breeding had made me timid, and the necessity for speaking a foreign tongue served only to increase my natural reserve; so that although I lived and studied day after day in the society of some two or three hundred young men, I yet lived as solitary a life as Robinson Crusoe in his island.

No one sought to know me.