“Dead! No.”
“You said just now that you had done it.”
“So I have. I’ve done the deed. I’ve gone to law.”
Had the captain said that he had gone to “sticks and stivers,” his sisters could not have been more startled and horrified. They dreaded the law, and hated it with a great and intense hatred, and not without reason; for their father had been ruined in a law-suit, and his father had broken the law, in some political manner they could never clearly understand, and had been condemned by the law to perpetual banishment.
“Will it do you much harm, dear, papa?” inquired Ailie, in great concern.
“Harm? Of course not. I hope it’ll do me, and you too, a great deal of good.”
“I’m so glad to hear that; for I’ve heard people say that when you once go into it you never get out of it again.”
“So have I,” said Aunt Martha, with a deep sigh.
“And so have I,” added Aunt Jane, with a deeper sigh, “and I believe it’s true.”
“It’s false!” cried the captain, laughing, “and you are all silly geese; the law is—”