“I—­I don’t know,” gasped Mrs. Tarbell.  The shock was almost as great as if she had thought Mrs. Stiles was a client.  And what was she to do?  Mrs. Stiles was not asking her to accept Miss Celandine as a student:  she was asking her whether Miss Celandine ought to study at all.  Mrs. Tarbell would have given anything to have a few platitudes at her tongue’s end, but her conscience rendered her helpless.  “Well, you see, Mrs. Stiles,” she said at length, “we are trying a—­hem—­an experiment, you know.”

“An experiment!” cried Mrs. Stiles, astounded.  “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 seriously you ought to reflect before you allow her to take such a risk.”