“Wicked? why, my dear madam! it brings in a larger interest than any other investment that I have been able to make. And you know your husband's will provides handsomely for you--the yearly allowance is very handsome indeed.” “It is all I wish, and more than I care for. I am not speaking of that.” “Yes, it is very handsome indeed. And by the time Paul is of age, in the way I am managing the property now, he will be the richest young man in this section of the State. The revenue of which you make complaints, will be of itself a handsome property, a large patrimony.” “It will seem to be loaded with curses, weighed down with the weight of heavy hearts, broken hearts, ruined lives.” “All imagination, my dear madam! You have a vivid imagination. But there will be nothing of the kind, I assure you,” says he, with a patronizing smile. “It will all be invested in government bonds,--good, honest dollars, with nothing more haunting than the American eagle on them.” “Yes, and these words, 'In God we trust.' But do you know,” says she, with the red spot growin' brighter on her cheek, and her eyes brighter,--“do you know, if one did not possess great faith, they would be apt to doubt the existence of a God, who can allow such injustice?” “What injustice, my dear madam?” says he, smilin' blandly. “You know, Mr. Post, just how my husband died: you know he was killed by intemperance. A drinking-saloon was just as surely the cause of his death, as the sword is, that pierces through a man's heart. Intemperance was the cause of his crime. He, the one I loved better than my own self, infinitely better, was made a murderer by it. I have lost him,” says she, a throwin' out her arms with a wild gesture that skairt me. “I have lost him by it.” And her eyes looked as big and wild and wretched, as if she was lookin' down the endless ages of eternity, a tryin' to find her love, and knew she couldn't. All this was in her eyes, in her voice. But she seemed to conquer her emotion by a mighty effort, tried to smother it down, and speak calmly for the sake of her boy. “And now, after I have suffered by it as I have, is it right, is it just, that I should be compelled to allow my property to be used to make other women's hearts, other mothers' hearts, ache as mine must ache forever?” “But, my dear madam, the law, as it is now, gives me the right to do as I am doing.” “I am pleading for justice, right: you have it in your power to grant my prayer. Women have no other weapon they can use, only just to plead, to beg for mercy.” “O my dear madam! you are quite wrong: you are entirely wrong. Women are the real rulers of the world. They, in reality, rule us men, with a rod of iron. Their dainty white hands, their rosy smiles, are the real autocrats of--of the breakfast-table, and of life.”