"I know, ma'am," said Mrs. Stiles. "Leastways, I guessed as much. I was thinking of asking you about Celandine." Mrs. Tarbell stirred uneasily, and Mrs. Stiles hurried on: "Celandine and me we were talking things over the other day,—we've been reading about you in the newspapers, Mrs. Tarbell, nigh on to four years now; Celandine has always been a comprehending child, precocious, as they say, and quick-witted, and she's been watching your career, ma'am, just as clost as you could yourself. And the day you was admitted she come home,—a friend of hers gave her the afternoon paper,—and she says, 'Mother,' she says, 'Mrs. Tarbell is admitted!'—just like it was a personal friend of yours, Mrs. Tarbell; and reely, ma'am, I suppose I oughtn't to say it, but there's been a good many women all over this country felt themselves personal friends of yours, ma'am, knowing how much there was meant by your success and feeling how near the question come to themselves; and if good wishes brings good luck, that's what you have to thank for succeeding. But Celandine she's an ambitious girl, Mrs, Tarbell, and the long and the short of it is just this, that she's set her heart on being a lawyer, and she's either too shy or too proud, mebbe, to come here with me to speak to you, ma'am: so I just put on my bunnit the first day I could, rain or shine, and rain it's turned out to be, to say a word to you about her and just ask you what you thought."
"A lawyer?" gasped Mrs. Tarbell.
"Yes, ma'am; a lady lawyer."
Mrs. Tarbell had never a word to say. In spite of having triumphed over all the arguments, both those epicene and those particularly masculine, which had been used against herself, she had not now the strength of mind to use them in her turn. In spite of being a lawyer, she had a conscience. She had looked forward to taking students, but they were all to have been Portias, every woman Jane of them; and before her own learning was fairly dry (which I think an eminently proper adjective to describe legal learning) there appeared to her an obviously crack-brained old party in an india-rubber cloak, who kept a candy-store and wanted her daughter to become a lawyer. No wonder Mrs. Tarbell was embarrassed. Was she to say to the crack-brained one, "Madam, pay me one hundred dollars per annum and I will take your daughter as a student"? On the other hand, how in the name of that Orloff, that Pitt, that Kohinoor diamond among precious virtues, consistency, was she to go so far as even to hint to Mrs. Stiles that any woman couldn't be a lawyer? As Mrs. Tarbell hesitated, she began to fear she was lost.
"Celandine is a real bright girl," said Mrs. Stiles, who had now regained her breath. Was this the woman who had knocked so timidly at the door? "Celandine is a real bright girl; her mind is thorough, logical, and comprehensive,—that's what Professor Jamieson said, up to the High School. Them was his very words. Celandine is to graduate this year: she's in the class with girls two and three years older than herself, Mrs. Tarbell. It was a terrible strain on me to keep her at school, ma'am, and again and again I've thought I couldn't stand it, what with her being in the shop only in the afternoon, and the washing, and trying to keep her clothes always nice; though she's been as good as gold,—making all her dresses her_self_, and wearing a calico till you'd have thought the stitches would have dropped right out of it. And she's ambitious, as I say. She don't seem to be able to face the idea of going into a store; and, oh, dear me! they're terrible places, those big stores, for girls. They're as bad as the factories; and often and often when I see those poor creatures that stand behind counters all day coming home at night and thinking so much about the way their hair's done, and then consider what slaves they are, and what they're exposed to, and how many wicked people are on the watch to work them to death for no pay at all, and bully them, and to lead them all wrong, if they can, why, it just makes me think how sensible the good Lord is, that he's able to take care of them so well and look after them as much as he does. Professor Jamieson has been as kind as could be about Celandine, and said he'd try to get a place for her as teacher; but you can't do that, you know, Mrs. Tarbell, not onless you've got friends in politics; and I haven't, not one. And a governess ain't often asked for; and you need influence for that, too. And Celandine, though she would take copying or typewriting, or be a telegraph operator, her own idea is to be a lawyer. And I just thought, Mrs. Tarbell, that I'd come to you and ask your advice; for I knew you'd sympathize."
"I—I don't know," gasped Mrs. Tarbell. The shock was almost as great as if she had thought Mrs. Stiles was a client. And what was she to do? Mrs. Stiles was not asking her to accept Miss Celandine as a student: she was asking her whether Miss Celandine ought to study at all. Mrs. Tarbell would have given anything to have a few platitudes at her tongue's end, but her conscience rendered her helpless. "Well, you see, Mrs. Stiles," she said at length, "we are trying a—hem—an experiment, you know."
"An experiment!" cried Mrs. Stiles, astounded. "Law bless us, you're admitted to be a lawyer, ain't you? And if one lady can be a lawyer—"
"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Tarbell hastily; "but that is not the question. I mean that it is not yet certain that women are going to succeed at the bar." Absolutely, though she was no fool, she had never made the concession before,—not even to herself.
"But you are a lawyer," repeated Mrs. Stiles.
"It doesn't follow that I shall make money at the law," said Mrs.
Tarbell impatiently, but with a sense of her own justice.