“I know it is foolish to feel nervous on such a subject; but I cannot help it. One connects so many ideas of vulgarity and crime, with prisons, and indictments, and trials, that we are apt to suppose all who are accused to belong to the commoner classes. Such is not the fact with Miss Monson, I can assure you. Not even Sarah—nay, not even _yourself_, my dear Anna, can pretend to more decided marks of refinement and education. I do not know a more distinguished young woman——” “There, Jack; now _you_ call her a woman yourself,” interrupted Anna, a little archly; secretly delighted at the compliment she had just heard. “_Young_ woman—anybody can say _that_, you know, without implying anything common or vulgar; and _woman_ too, sometimes. I do not know how it was; but I did not exactly like the word as you happened to use it. I believe close and long watching is making me nervous; and I am not quite as much myself as usual.” Anna gave a very soft sigh, and that seemed to afford her relief, though it was scarcely audible; then she continued the subject. “How old is this extraordinary young lady?” she demanded, scarce speaking loud enough to be heard. “Old! How can I tell? She is very youthful in appearance; but, from the circumstance of her having so much money at command, I take it for granted she is of age. The law now gives to every woman the full command of all her property, even though married, after she become of age.” “Which I trust you find a very proper attention to the rights of our sex!” “I care very little about it; though Uncle Tom says it is of a piece with all our late New York legislation.” “Mr. Dunscomb, like most elderly persons, has little taste for change.” “It is not that. He thinks that minds of an ordinary stamp are running away with the conceit that they are on the road of progress; and that most of our recent improvements, as they are called, are marked by empiricism. This ‘tea-cup law,’ as he terms it, will set the women above their husbands, and create two sets of interests where there ought to be but one.” “Yes; I am aware such is his opinion. He remarked, the day he brought home my mother’s settlement for the signatures, that it was the most ticklish part of his profession to prepare such papers. I remember one of his observations, which struck me as being very just.” “Which you mean to repeat to me, Anna?” “Certainly, John, if you wish to hear it,” returned a gentle voice, coming from one unaccustomed to refuse any of the reasonable requests of this particular applicant. “The remark of Mr. Dunscomb was this:—He said that most family misunderstandings grew out of money; and he thought it unwise to set it up as a bone of contention between man and wife. Where there was so close a union in all other matters, he thought there might safely be a community of interests in this respect. He saw no sufficient reason for altering the old law, which had the great merit of having been tried.”