glad he refused the oppressor's gold!" exclaimed
Bee, before Ishmael could reply.

When Bee ceased to speak, he said:

"I am very sorry, Miss Merlin, to oppose your sentiments in any
instance, but in this I could not do otherwise."

"It is simply a question of right or wrong. If the man's cause was
bad, Ishmael was right to refuse his brief; if the woman's cause was
good, he was right to take her brief," said Mrs. Middleton, as they
all arose from the table.

That evening Ishmael found himself by chance alone in the drawing room
with Bee.

He was standing before the front window, gazing sadly into vacancy.
The carriage, containing Miss Merlin, Lord Vincent, and Mrs. Middleton
as chaperone, had just rolled away from the door. They were going to a
dinner party at the President's. And Ishmael was gazing sadly after
them, when Bee came up to his side and spoke:

"I am very glad, Ishmael, that you have taken sides with the poor
mother; it was well done."

"Thank you, dear Bee! I hope it was well done; I do not regret doing
it; but they say that I have ruined my prospects."

"Do not believe it, Ishmael. Have more faith in the triumph of right
against overwhelming odds. I like the lines you quoted--' Thrice is he
armed who feels his quarrel just!' The poets teach us a great deal,
Ishmael. Only to-day I happened to be reading in Scott--in one of his
novels, by the way, this was, however--of the deadly encounter in the
lists between the Champion of the Wrong, the terrible knight Brian de
Bois Guilbert, and the Champion of Right, the gentle knight Ivanhoe.
Do you remember, Ishmael, how Ivanhoe arose from his bed of illness,
pale, feeble, reeling, scarcely able to bear the weight of his armor,
or to sit his horse, much less encounter such a thunderbolt of war as
Bois Guilbert? There seemed not a hope in the world for Ivanhoe. Yet,
in the first encounter of the knights, it was the terrible Bois
Guilbert that rolled in the dust. Might is not right; but right is
might, Ishmael!"

"I know it, dear Bee; thank you, thank you, for making me feel it
also!" said Ishmael fervently.

"The alternative presented to you last night and this morning was sent
as a trial, Ishmael; such a trial as I think every man must encounter
once in his life, as a decisive test of his spirit. Even our Saviour
was tempted, offered all the kingdoms of this world, and the glory of
them, if he would fall down and worship Satan. But he rebuked the
temp