pony
halts? that's what's the matter? You are afraid of encountering some of
the great guns of the law, are you? Don't be alarmed. The schoolmistress
is too poor to pay for distinguished legal talent. She may get some
briefless pettifogger to appear for her; a man set up for you to knock
down. Your case is just what the first case of a young lawyer should
be--plain sailing, law distinctly on your side, dash of sentiment,
domestic affections, and all that, and certain success at the end. Your
victory will be as easy as it will be complete."

"Poor thing!" murmured Ishmael; "too poor to employ talent for the
defense of her possession of her own children!"

"Come, my lad; pocket your fee and take up your brief," said the judge.

"I would rather not, sir; I do not like to appear against a woman--a
mother defending her right in her own children. It appears to me to be
cruel to wish to deprive her of them," said the gentle-spirited young
lawyer.

"Cruel; it is merciful rather. No one wishes really to deprive her of
them, but to give them to their father, that she may be drawn through
her love for them to live with him."

"No woman should be so coerced, sir; no man should wish her to be."

"But I tell you it is for her good to be reunited to her husband."

"Her own heart, taught by her own instincts and experiences, is the best
judge of that."

"Ishmael don't be Quixotic: if you do, you will never succeed in the
legal profession. In this case the law is on the father's side, and you
should be on the law's."

"The law is the minister of justice, and shall never in my hands become
the accomplice of injustice. The law may be on the father's side; but
that remains to be proved when both sides shall be heard; but it appears
to me that justice and mercy are on the mother's side."

"That remains to be proved. Come, boy, don't be so mad as to refuse this
golden opening to fame and fortune! Pocket your fee and take up your
brief."

"Judge Merlin, I thank you from the depths of my heart for your great
goodness in procuring this chance for me; and I beg that you will pardon
me for what I am about to say--but I cannot touch either fee or brief.
The case is a case of cruelty, sir, and I cannot have anything to do
with it. I cannot make my debut in a court of law against a poor
woman,--a poor mother,--to tear from her the babes she is clasping to
her bosom."

"Ishmael, if those are the sentiments and principles under which yo