a woman has influenced these cruel instructions, Mrs. Presty;
and, therefore, I doubt if a woman influenced the letter which
led the way to them. Did I not say just now that I was coming to
the point? and here I am wandering further and further away from
it. A lawyer is human; there is the only excuse. Now, Mrs.
Linley, in two words; your husband is determined to have little
Miss Kitty; and the law, when he applies to it, is his obedient
humble servant."

"Do you mean that the law takes my child away from me?"

"I am ashamed, madam, to think that I live by the law; but that,
I must own, is exactly what it is capable of doing in the present
case. Compose yourself, I beg and pray. A time will come when
women will remind men that the mother bears the child and feeds
the child, and will insist that the mother's right is the best
right of the two. In the meanwhile--"

"In the meanwhile, Mr. Sarrazin, I won't submit to the law."

"Quite right, Catherine!" cried Mrs. Presty. "Exactly what I
should do, in your place."

Mr. Sarrazin listened patiently. "I am all attention, good
ladies," he said, with the gentlest resignation. "Let me hear how
you mean to do it."

The good ladies looked at each other. They discovered that it is
one thing to set an abuse at defiance in words, and another thing
to apply the remedy in deeds. The kind-hearted lawyer helped them