stounded. "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.

Mrs. Stiles was staggered. "Not make any money?" she faltered.

"My good woman," said Mrs. Tarbell, "let me tell you that I have not yet
had a single client, that I have not yet made a single dollar!" And,
really, this was rather magnanimous. "The fact is, Mrs. Stiles," she
continued, "it is impossible to say how long it will be before women
inspire public confidence in their ability to do what has always been
supposed to be man's work."

"Law!" said Mrs. Stiles.

"And your daughter had better wait till that is settled in our favor
before she commits herself."

In Mrs. Stiles's cheeks a queer tinge appeared upon the gingerbread hue
before spoken of,--a faint reddish tinge, a sprinkling of powdered
cinnamon and sugar, as it were. "But, Mrs. Tarbell," she cried, "I
thought--why, I thought the courts arranged all that."

"You don't mean to tell me it was your belief that the members of the
bar are paid by the court?" said Mrs. Tarbell, aghast.

"Why, no, not exactly," stammered Mrs. Stiles. "But, then, I thought
they--sort of--distributed things, you know. Don't they? I heerd of a
young gentleman who was appointed to be lawyer for a man who cut his
wife's throat with a pair of scissors, and the gentleman had never seen
him before, not once."

"Did you suppose," said Mrs. Tarbell,--the affair was arranging itself
very easily, after all,--"did you suppose that the judges undertake to
see that the business of the courts is equally distributed among the
lawyers?"

"I--I don't know, ma'am, I'm sure."

"My good, woman," said Mrs, Tarbell, with great seriousness, "a lawyer
is just as much dependent upon custom as you are. There are many
confectioners who do a large business, there are some who fail. So it is
with lawyers. And many lawyers have to wait ten or twelve years before
they become known at all. So you see in what a critical situation your
daughter runs the risk of placing herself, and how