Alice had pastimes and society enough to fill her days: a weekly drawing lesson from a nice old Italian, who came to her from Broadway; daily calls hither and thither; occasional balls about the county; rides out in the trap, sometimes in the company of her sister-in-law Caroline. These excursions she especially enjoyed, for she and her husband’s sister were close; and although Alice was the more outspoken, nevertheless Caroline, too, was an independent thinker who liked to discourse on matters divers.

To disagree was not to Alice disagreeable. So long as civility was maintained, she found debate stimulating to the mind. At her aunt’s house in Cheltenham, only the week before, she had caused Dr Nolan to flush quite crimson in the service of offering a spirited defence of chloroform. Her husband’s health at the Black Sea being never far from her mind, she often approached the doctor with pertinent enquiries. Alice had read a correspondence in The Times which enumerated the demerits, and then in answer the virtues, of that preparation. The French in Crimea used chloroform enthusiastically for amputations, but some of their British counterparts were more wary. A number of eminent doctors had written to the paper, declaring that the depressing effects of chloroform could cause a patient to die; whereas the pain of the knife provided a powerful stimulant and thereby a much fairer chance of recovery.

‘I seem to recall, Dr Nolan, that the author of one such criticism concluded that it is better to hear a man bawl lustily than to see him sink silently into the grave,’ said Alice.

‘If that were true, it would certainly be better; but it is not so.’

‘But the great Dr Hall believes it to be the case, does he not?’ said Alice.

‘The great doctor is not a young doctor. He is fixed in his ways and in this I regret to say that he is, in this one particular, mistaken. Pain is exhausting to a patient and a worn-out patient is the less likely to recover from an operation than one who feels no pain. It is true that care must be taken in the administration of chloroform, but used correctly it is very much to be welcomed. I would even venture so far as to say that in future all surgery will be carried out with the use of it.’