o
many years of weary waiting looks to you for advancement? Mr. Botts is a
most worthy and indefatigable man; perhaps a trifle too much addicted to
repetition for the sake of rhetorical effect,--a thing, I admit, very
trying; but it is of the highest importance (I say this between
ourselves, of course, and you may imagine that I would not give
publicity to such a statement),--it is of the _highest_ importance that
the feelings of our--hem--masculine colleagues should not be--"

"Yes, yes," interrupted Mrs. Tarbell hastily, "I appreciate that fully,
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