"Respect her? Respect Miss Matoaca Bland? Of course you respect her, sir. Even George Bolingbroke, bitter as he is, respects her from his boots up. She's the embodiment of honour, and if there's a man alive who doesn't respect the embodiment of honour, be it male or female, he ought--he ought to be taken out and horsewhipped, sir! Her own sister, poor Miss Mitty, has the greatest veneration for her, though she can't help lying awake at night and wondering where those crazy principles will lead her next. If they lead her to a quagmire, she'll lift her skirts and step in, Ben, there's no doubt of that--and what Miss Mitty fears now is that, since she's got hold of these abolition sheets, they'll lead her to the public platform--" "You mean she'd get up and speak in public? She couldn't to save her head." "You'd better not conclude that Miss Matoaca can't do anything until you've seen her try it," replied the doctor indignantly. "I suppose you'd think she couldn't bombard a political meeting, with not a woman to help her. Yet last winter she went down to the Legislature, in her black silk dress and poke bonnet, and tried to get her obnoxious measures brought before a committee." "Was she laughed at?" I demanded angrily. "Good Lord, no. They are gentlemen, even if they are politicians, and they know a lady even if she's cracked." "And is she entirely alone? Has she no supporter?" "As far as I know, my boy, Matoaca Bland is the only blessed thing in the state that cares a continental whether women are emancipated or not." He lifted the silver goblet to his lips, and drank long and deeply, while the rustle of Mrs. Clay's skirts was heard at his office door. After a sharp rap, she entered in her bustling way, and presented me with a second julep, deliciously frosted and fragrant. She was a small, very alert old lady, wearing a bottle-green alpaca, made so slender in the waist that it caused her to resemble one of her own famous pickled cucumbers. "Theophilus," she began in a crisp, high voice, "I hope you have sent in those bills, as you promised me?" "Good Lord, Tina," responded the doctor, with a burst of irritation, "isn't it bad enough to be sick without being made to pay for it?" "You promised me, Theophilus." "I promised you I'd send bills to the folks I'd cured, but, when I came to think of it, how was I to know, Tina, that I'd cured any?" "At least you dosed them?" "Yes, I dosed them," he admitted; "but taking medicine isn't a pleasure that I'd like to pay for." Turning away, she rustled indignantly through the door, and Dr. Theophilus, as he returned to the rim of his silver goblet, gave me a sly wink over his sprigs of mint. "Yes, Ben, it isn't always the woman who is right that makes a man's heaven," he said. CHAPTER XVII IN WHICH MY FORTUNES RISE