The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 114: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE EVIL GENIUS. 105 (how much nicer it would be for all of us if we could go to bed oO) I think I know how you answered your husband’s ietter. But ought, perhaps, to see how you have expressed yourself. Have ou got a copy ?” ‘¢It was too short, Mr. Sarrazin, to make a copy necessary.” ‘‘Do you mean you can remember it ?” ‘‘T can repeat it word for word. This was my reply: ‘Ire fuse, positively, to part with my child.’” ‘*No more than that?” ‘*No more.” Mr. Sarrazin looked at his client with undisguised admiration ‘The only time in all my long experience,” he said, ** in which I have found a lady’s letter capable of expressing itself strongl} in few words. What a lawyer you will make, Mrs. Linley, when the rights of women invade my profession!” He put his hand into his breast-pocket, and produced a lettet addressed to himself. ‘¢ Watching him anxiously, the ladies saw his bright face be- come overclouded with anxiety. ‘‘I am the wretched bearer of bad news,” he resumed, ‘‘ and if I fidget in my chair, that is the reason for it. Let usget to the point—and let us get off it again as soon as possible. Here is a letter, written tome by Mr. Lin- ley’s lawyer. If you will take my advice you will let me say what the substance of it is, and then put it back in my pocket. I doubt if a woman has influenced these cruel instructions, Mrs. Presty, and, therefore, I doubt if a woman influenced the letter which has 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 ex- cuse. Now, Mrs. Linley, in two words! Your husband is deter- mined 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?” ‘‘T 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 with asuggestion. ‘‘ Perhaps you think of making your escape with the child, and taking refuge abroad ?” Mrs. Linley eageriy accepted the hint. ‘* The first train _to- morrow morning starts at half-past seven,” she said. ‘* We COMIC OO® S (E() im