A little school of about a dozen small girls, of the middle class in society, seated on forms ranged in exact order on each side the narrow aisle that led up to the teacher's desk. Seated behind that desk was a little, thin, dark-haired woman, dressed in a black alpaca and white collar and cuffs. At the entrance of Ishmael she glanced up with large, scared-looking black eyes that seemed to fear in every stranger to see an enemy or peril. As Ishmael advanced towards her those wild eyes grew wilder with terror, her cheeks blanched to a deadly whiteness, and she clasped her hands and she trembled.
"Poor hunted hare! she fears even in me a foe!" thought Ishmael, as he walked up to the desk. She arose and leaned over the desk, looking at him eagerly and inquiringly with those frightened eyes.
And now for the first time Ishmael felt a sense of embarrassment. A generous, youthful impulse to help the oppressed had hurried him to her presence; but what should he say to her? how apologize for his unsolicited visit? how venture, unauthorized, to intermeddle with her business?
He bowed and laid his card before her.
She snatched it up and read it eagerly.
Ishmael Worth,
Attorney-at-Law.
"Ah! you—I have been expecting this. You come from my—I mean Mr. Walsh?" she inquired, palpitating with panic.
"No, madam," said Ishmael, in a sweet, reassured, and reassuring tone, for compassion for her had restored confidence to him. "No, madam, I am not the counsel of Mr. Walsh."
"You—you come from court, then? Perhaps you are going to have the writ of habeas corpus, with which I have been threatened, served upon me? You need not! I won't give up my children—they are my own! I won't for twenty writs of habeas corpus," she exclaimed excitedly.
"But, madam—" began Ishmael soothingly.