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.”