'I do not see why you should go on with your law reading,' Mrs. Dallas broke out at last. 'Really,—why should you? You are perfectly independent already, without any help from your father; house and servants and all, and money enough; your father would say, too much. Haven't you thought of giving up your chambers in the Temple?'
'No, mother.'
'Any other young man would. Why not you? What do you want to study law for any more?'
'One must do something, you know.'
'Something—but I never heard that law was an amusing study. Is it not the driest of the dry?'
'Rather dry—in spots.'
'What is your notion, then, Pitt?—if you do not like it.'
'I do like it. And I am thinking of the use it may be.'
'The use?' said Mrs. Dallas bewilderedly.
'It is a grand profession,' he went on; 'a grand profession, when used for its legitimate purposes! I want to have the command of it. If the study is sometimes dry, the practice is often, or it often may be, in the highest degree interesting.'