“I will try to do so,” said the woman.

It is useless to repeat her story here.  It was only the same old story—­of the young girl of fortune marrying a spendthrift, who dissipated her property, estranged her friends, alienated her affections, and then left her penniless, to struggle alone with all the ills of poverty to bring up her three little girls.  By her own unaided efforts she had fed, clothed, and educated her three children for the last nine years.  And now he had come back and wanted her to live with him again.  But she had not only ceased to love him, but began to dread him, lest he should get into debt and make way with the little personal property she had gathered by years of labor, frugality, self-denial.

“He says that he is wealthy, how is that?” questioned Ishmael.

A spasm of pain passed over her sensitive face.

“I did not like to tell you, although I promised to be candid with you; but ah!  I cannot benefit by his wealth; I could not conscientiously appropriate one dollar; and even if I could do so, I could not trust in its continuance; the money is ill-gotten and evanescent; it is the money of a gambler, who is a prince one hour and a pauper the next.”

Then seeing Ishmael shrink back in painful surprise, she added: 

“To do him justice, Mr. Worth, that is his only vice; it has ruined my little family; it has brought us to the very verge of beggary; it must not be permitted to do so again; I must defend my little home and little girls, against the spoiler.”

“Certainly,” said Ishmael, whose time was growing short; “give me pen and ink; I will take down minutes of the statement, and then read it to you, to see if it is correct.”

She placed stationery before him on one of the school-desks, and he sat down and went to work.

“You have witnesses to support your statement?” he inquired.

“Oh, yes! scores of them, if wanted.”

“Give me the names of the most important and the facts they can swear to.”

Mrs. Walsh complied, and he took them down.  When he had finished and read over the brief to her, and received her assurance that it was correct, he arose to take his leave.

“But—­will not all those witnesses cost a great deal of money?  And will not there be other heavy expenses apart from the services of counsel that you are so good as to give me?” inquired the teacher anxiously.

“Not for you,” replied Ishmael, in a soothing voice, as he shook hands with her, and, with the promise to see her again at the same hour the next day, took his leave.

He smiled upon the little sisters as he passed them in the doorway, and then left the schoolhouse and hurried on towards home.

“Well!” said Judge Merlin, who was waiting for him in the library, “have you decided?  Are you counsel for the plaintiff in the great suit of Walsh versus Walsh?”

“No,” answered Ishmael, “I am retained for the defendant.  I have just had a consultation with my client.”