I assure you. But yesterday evening I was rather tired, and I—"
"Tired!" said Mrs. Pegley, in the voice of acute anguish which caused her to be known as a woman of the most extraordinary intensity of convictions. "It is a wonder we are not all in our graves," she added, in tones whose sombre depth was brightened by a little colloquial levity, for she felt that she had been too severe with Mrs. Tarbell. "Still," she continued, "after Mr. Bott's very flattering remarks you might have spoken with a little more—er—earnestness and—er—vigor yourself, you know. And for such an audience as we had last night, three minutes is really—"
After this, Mrs. Tarbell resolved that her next effort at public speaking should be made before an American jury, or not at all. Indeed, she went so far as to think it a great mistake to suppose that woman's cause could not be advanced without calling meetings and haranguing them till eleven o'clock at night. Very likely her ideals were still of the highest order, and certainly she still hoped that when women were allowed to practise law the law would be so changed that you would hardly recognize it; but she wanted to carry on her part of the work occultly and quietly. She had got over a good many of her own illusions, and she was taking a more practical view of life. She smiled when she thought of the prophecies which had been made about her, and she no longer read the paragraphs about herself in the newspapers. She kept her brother's dockets and drew his papers. Alexander frowned a good deal, and said it wasn't necessary, but she insisted that she must pay him in some way for her education. She put his desk in order and gave him new papers every other day, which practices he never could get her to forego. In short, she settled down into a routine of study, office-work, and regularly recurring attempts to get in. And when she finally did get in, she had become a cynic. Everybody remembers, of course, how at the end of his last term Judge Oldwigg announced his intention to retire into private life and decline a reelection, and how the managers of the party in power chose Judge Measy as their candidate for the vacant place. The prospective judge was waited on privately by a deputation of Mrs. Tarbell's friends, headed by Mrs. Pegley, and asked to define his position on the Tarbell question. The deputation did not contain many voters, and no bargain which Mr. Measy, as he then was, could have made with it would have increased his majority very largely: as he was pretty sure of a majority, he must be cleared of all suspicion of making a bargain. But he did deliver to Mrs. Pegley an oracular answer, which was in course of time interpreted in Mrs. Tarbell's favor. She came up before him; Mr. Juddson made the motion which he had so often made before, and made it, I regret to say, in rather hurried tones, when, to everybody's surprise, Judge Measy produced a manuscript and read it out, and proved that a lawyer was a person who practiced law, and that therefore, as a woman was a person, she could be a lawyer, interspersing his remarks with graceful historical allusions and several profound reflections upon the design of Nature in creating the female sex. Then, acting as man, not judge, he descended to the side-bar, beckoned to Mrs. Tarbell, grasped her by the hand, and made her a speech. "Madam," said the courtly judge, "Mrs. Tarbell, I congratulate you,"—which was one for himself as well,—"and let me add that it gives me the sincerest satisfaction to be able to testify in this manner to the veneration which I have always entertained for woman; and I am quite sure that in no long space of time you will have proved to us that the law cannot say it has nothing to gain from her refining influence. For I remember my own mother, Mrs. Tarbell," said Judge Measy. The bar listened in awed admiration. Mrs. Tarbell bit her lips, bowed, and thanked his honor as best she could. The idea of suggesting that she was anybody's mother, or that even if she had a family that was any reason for permitting her to be a barrister! But from the other side of the court-room was heard an expressive rustling, and audible whispers of satisfaction were wafted across the lawyers on their chairs. Mrs. Pegley and her train were sitting by, radiant, triumphant, majestic. The dignity of motherhood was vindicated.
And now that Juddson and Tarbell were moving to their new offices, who should also at the very same time become a tenant of the Land and Water Insurance Company but the Honorable Franklin Blood Pope? The Land and Water Company's new building was in a very desirable locality, and several lawyers deserted their old nooks and corners to occupy its spacious and well-calcimined apartments. Juddson and Tarbell took the rooms on the back of the third floor, Mr. Pope those on the front ditto: they were very near neighbors. In former days Mrs. Tarbell had often complained to her husband of Mr. Pope's success. It was an argument that men had not as much common sense as they pretended to have, she said, or else they would see through Franklin B–'s absurd pretensions. "Even I can perceive that the man is a humbug," she continued. "In fact, any woman could. Why is he successful, then? Why has he an enormous practice? Why has he been sent to Congress? If it is because he has a majestic appearance and can talk a great deal, women certainly can fulfill these conditions, and that by your own account of them."
To which Mr. Tarbell would answer, "Exactly, my love, by all means; and so is your friend Mrs. Pegley a great talker, and a fine-looking woman."
"Then give her all the rights you give to Mr. Pope," cried Mrs. Tarbell.
"She shall have 'em, and welcome," said Tarbell; but he did not tell his wife that he had voted for Mr. Pope on the opposition ticket, and had even consulted him on matters of business,—once going so far as to suggest to him that a certain proposed alteration in the tariff would seriously affect the mourning-goods industry,—from which it may be gathered that it was not from any lack of prudence that Mr. Tarbell died a bankrupt and left his widow to become a lady-lawyer.
Mr. Pope himself it was who betrayed Mr. Tarbell's confidence and opened Mrs. Tarbell's eyes. "Your husband was my very good friend, my dear madam," said the Honorable Franklin, "and I was proud to call him my client. Yes, I had the honor of advising him in several matters and of carrying through some rather delicate negotiations for him. A man of the strictest integrity, ever genial and urbane, of sound judgment and independent views, endowed with strong common sense and quick perceptions. You see, I had the highest opinion of Mr. Tarbell, and have often wished to tell his widow—alas that I should have to call her so!—how certain I am that she will succeed in the career she has chosen, and how deeply I grieve that her husband could not have lived to find in her a better adviser than I ever could have been to him."
Messrs.—I mean Mrs. and Mr.—Tarbell and Juddson were just moving into their new offices when Mr. Pope uttered these kind wishes. He met Mrs. Tarbell on the door-step: he was standing there, indeed, when she came in. He was always standing on the door-step: he carried on most of his business, especially with the politicians, in public. "I beg that you will use my library on all occasions," he continued, raising his voice a little. "If I may say so myself, it is rather comprehensive; in fact, I am very proud of it. And any assistance which I can give you in any way, my dear madam, will, I need hardly say, be given most heartily."
Use his library, indeed! Mrs. Tarbell would have been as likely to go to the Vatican and ask Pope Leo for the loan of a few works contra hæreticos. Why had she and her brother ever come to the Land and Water Company's building? The idea of meeting the Honorable Pope every day, of every day beholding his portly figure, statesman-like features, and lion mane, and acknowledging his bland bows and salutations, was inexpressibly odious. And, what was worse, Mr. Pope continued to flourish like a green bay-tree, or like the proprietors of a patent medicine or a blackguard newspaper, or any other comparison you please. Feet tramped along the hall, hands knocked at his door, lips innumerable whispered into his ears, and Mrs. Tarbell sat and looked at her sign, wondering what had become of all the women who were to have employed her. She had not said, "Walk in, madam," to one of them; and Mr. Juddson's clients all regarded her as if she were a curiosity.
Mrs. Tarbell looked, in fact, like the president of a Dorcas society or a visitor of a church hospital. She had pleasing features, dark hair, slightly touched with gray, as became a lawyer of thirty-five, and dignified manners. She dressed very plainly in a black dress with just one row of broad trimming down the front, and, though she felt that it was an abuse of authority, she drew her hair straight back from her forehead. This question of her hair had given her some little anxiety, and it had cost her some time to decide what kind of hat or bonnet she should wear. Alexander said she might use her riding-hat for the sake of economy, but she had decided on a tweed walking-hat, which could be taken off very quickly in the court-room. For, whatever she might do in church, it was now impossible