AMOS DIXON had not been long gone from the elegant house when Miss Sophia Garr, caparisoned in a jaunty hat and a ready-made cloak, sallied forth on a little business of her own.

She took the nearest way to Montgomery Street, and proceeded almost to the head of that thoroughfare. Ascending a very wide flight of steps, she turned to the right, and went up a narrower flight; turning again to the left, she went up a narrower flight still. Without pausing to take breath, Miss Sophia proceeded, by the help of the skylight, to read the names on a whole army of doors. Making nearly the whole circuit of the long hall, she arrived finally at a door which seemed to meet with her approval, for she nodded her head, knocked, and walked briskly in.

“What a horrid-looking man!” she said, as she threw herself upon a well-worn lounge, and breathed heavily.

“What an ugly old vixen!” replied the gentleman thus apostrophised, looking up from the desk at which he sat writing.

“Hem!” rejoined Miss Sophia, eyeing him wickedly, and still labouring for her breath, after her unwonted exertion.

“Well, madam?”

“How dare you, sir—but this is Mr. Beanson, no doubt?”

“Yes, madam.”

“I called, sir,” pronounced Miss Garr, in an angry tone, “to have you explain to me explicitly, and without reservation, what constitutes a breach of promise.”

Now two different persons had been harassing Mr. Beanson that very morning with unpaid bills. Yet it was a characteristic of this remarkable man that all his greatest troubles were in the future—that undiscovered country of his first brief, and the presidency. He was possessed of a wonderful talent at apprehending evil; and he had not heard Miss Sophia this long without exerting it. He thought instantly of the snares laid for unsuspecting young men by designing females, and did not grow calmer as his visitor repeated—

“Come, sir; you profess to be a lawyer, if you are not. Can you tell me, sir?”

“M—madam, I don’t know you!” exclaimed Mr. Beanson, feeling very much confused, but looking, as he always did, very aggressive.

“I found your card in my card-case, and I want to know, sir, what constitutes a breach of promise.”

“Madam, I tell you I don’t know you at all!”

“But did you not leave your card in my card-case at Mrs. Clayton’s?”

“I did, madam, but that does not constitute a breach of promise; and I warn you now,” said Mr. Beanson, raising his voice and his forefinger, and shaking both at her simultaneously, “I warn you now, madam, that you cannot ground an action for breach of promise on a little skilful advertising!”

“What do you mean, sir?”

Mr. Beanson observed a sudden and marked change coming over the features of his visitor, and took it for the herald of her discomfiture and his own triumph.

“What do I mean?” iterated Mr. Beanson. “I mean, madam, that in this latter stage of juridical enlightenment a man cannot be held for breach of promise, or prosecuted for breach of promise, by a woman whom he never saw before in his life—and, for that matter, never wishes to see again—just because he put his business card in her card-case.” Here the speaker, seeing the remarkable effect of his philippic, launched himself upon his feet, the better to enjoy the ovation he was preparing for himself. As he undoubled his exceeding length before Sophia, he had the satisfaction of seeing the additional effect he was producing, even apart from his oratory. It was the very yellow jaundice of tones in which Mr. Beanson concluded—

“No, madam, you would not get any intelligent court in the land, in these premises, to find cause of action. It was nothing but a skilful advertisement—in short, an act of commercial and legal genius. You, I suppose, would make it a crime punishable by marriage with such as you. The thing is simply ridiculous! Madam, I have done. Have you?”

Mr. Beanson resumed his seat triumphantly, and eyed the astonished Garr with an expression that made his head look older than common.

Miss Sophia could not have interrupted the foregoing forensic display if she had tried. In her bewilderment she was mutely deciding whether she, Sophia Garr, or all the men were going stark mad. George Lang had offered himself to Amelia, after being accepted by herself. Then this impudent red-headed wretch—whom she had never attempted to marry—either he or she was certainly crazy. The question was too complicated for a prompt decision.

The two had sat for some moments, glaring at each other, in profound silence, when Miss Garr suddenly exclaimed, “You long-waisted vagabond, shut up!”

This might have been effectual in a contest with a person of her own sex; since it might have shocked into silence or proved an Ultima Thule of feminine virulence. When, however, Mr. Beanson, having taken some time to consider, remembered that he was not talking at all when he was requested to “shut up,” the thing struck him as laughable. Accordingly Mr. Beanson laughed—laughed loud and long, till Mr. Beanson had laughed out all the fun there was in the occurrence, and some of his own anger to boot.

“Now, madam,” said he facetiously, “I am prepared to part with you.”

Miss Garr was more angry than ever.

“I say, madam, I am prepared to part with you. I will not detain you further.”

“You ugly, hateful, impudent wretch!” remarked Sophia, finding speech at last. “You may insult me here as much as you please, since I am without a protector; but you shall not drive me away till you have answered my question. I would as soon marry a keg of nails as you, sir; so you may set your mind at rest! It is somebody else that my outraged feelings are interested in—somebody else of more consequence than you, though I verily believe he is as big a villain——”

“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Beanson, as any other drowning man might have done before he was swallowed up by any other flood.

“Do you suppose, sir, I would walk all the way here from Folsome Street, and up these interminable stairs, and then go away, without knowing what constitutes a breach of promise? I would have you know, sir, that my case is urgent.”

“Then you did not intend to prosecute me at all?” asked Mr. Beanson, opening his eyes very wide.

“Have I not told you once? Would I prosecute a keg of nails, you ninny?”

As strange as it may seem, a bland smile, which spread over the entire face of Mr. Beanson, was the result of this last poisoned arrow of Miss Garr. The ignis fatuus of his first brief was again rising over the marshes of his present embarrassments. “Well, well, madam,” rejoined Mr. Beanson, “I will do anything in the world to serve you. Who is it, by the way, that you wish to prosecute?”

“I don’t know as that is any of your business at present, sir; I first want an answer to the question I have asked about forty times: What constitutes a breach of promise?”

“To tell the truth, madam, there are so many conditions to a breach of promise that an abstract definition of it would not do the least good in the world; and I could not give one without consulting my books—but do you absolutely insist on mentioning no names?”

“I do, sir.”

“Will you state the case, then, without names?”

“You must see, sir, that my natural delicacy revolts against any revelations to strangers.”

“Why, madam, counsellor and client should never be strangers. Besides, you must be aware that a breach of promise depends on so many things. As I have said before, there are so many conditions that we cannot proceed at all unless you answer certain questions; such as, for instance, whether you—I mean the lady, the plaintiff, in fact—has any proof of a promise, express or implied.”

Miss Garr looked about the room in silent uncertainty.

“Have you—I mean, has the lady—for example, any witnesses—any one who has heard the defendant that is to be,” pursued Mr. Beanson, in the language of the future, “express or imply a promise?”

She could not say that the lady had.

“Had she any letters to show which contained a promise either expressed or implied?”

“The lady,” responded Miss Garr mysteriously; “the lady has not.”

“Has the plaintiff been injured in any way by the defendant?”

“Yes, grossly.”

“Ah, then, I begin to see a case. Set the damages heavy—set the damages heavy. By-the-bye, is the defendant rich?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” said Mr. Beanson, rubbing his hands. “We will make the villain suffer.”

“Thank you, Mr. Beanson. Fifty thousand dollars will be little enough. Thank you, Mr. Beanson.” And Miss Garr actually shook hands with Mr. Beanson on the spot.

“Hem, ah! what was—the—nature of—these injuries—that you say the defendant had inflicted upon you—the lady, I should say, the plaintiff?”

Miss Garr feigned an uneasy look.

“Must I tell?” she demanded, dropping her eyes.

“I am sorry, madam, it is absolutely necessary, since the whole case seems to hang upon that injury, or those injuries alone.”

“Well, then,” said Sophia, riveting her maidenly orbs meekly upon a broken coal-scuttle; “well, then, sir, he kissed her in the dark!”

“Is that all?”

“Is it not enough, sir?”

“It might have been enough,” replied Mr. Beanson, in the stumbling innocence which had been the bane of his life; “it might have been enough, madam, for the defendant, or for the plaintiff even, but it is hardly enough to ground an action of breach of promise upon.”

Miss Garr was angry; Mr. Beanson puzzled; and both were silent. If he had seen a possible chance of securing his first brief in any other way, Mr. Archibald Beanson would most certainly have dismissed Sophia instanter.

Running his long fingers inanely through his red hair, “Madam!” he said at last, “I think I shall be obliged to consult Bishop on Marriage.”

“Now look here, sir,” observed Miss Sophia, wrapping her ready-made cloak tighter around her, “if you keep on, I shall lose my patience and my good manners. Who in the world wants to consult the bishop on marriage? An ordinary minister, or even a justice of the peace, will do me. I am not proud, sir.”

Mr. Beanson, trying to look learned, succeeded in looking confused. Undoubling himself again—this time with abstruse deliberation—he went to a meagre bookcase, and returned to his desk. “It was this book,” said he, “that I had reference to—‘Bishop on Marriage and Divorce!’”

“Well, now you begin to get sensible,” remarked Miss Garr, in a tone and manner which, expressed in words, would have read, “I grant your pardon, sir, for your trivial mistake about ministers and bishops.”

Mr. Beanson opened the book, and, glancing over the table of contents, his eye rested on the heading of a chapter, which read thus—“Want of age.”

In his utter helplessness, Archibald looked up again at Sophia and asked, “Is there any want of age in the parties?”

“Now look here, sir; I did not come here to be insulted. You think I do not understand your irony. I would have you to know that I do.”

“I asked that question,” said Mr. Beanson, soothingly, “with all due reverence for your age. This is the first time you have openly acknowledged that you are the plaintiff in the contemplated suit. I have known it all along, however; and I therefore assure you that the question about age was suggested wholly by my ignorance as to the other party—the defendant.”

Mr. Beanson, without perusing the commentary on this speech written in the face of his client, now glanced his eye back to the table of contents again. The question suggested this time seemed to that astute pundit an honest one, and based on sufficient grounds. “Want of mental capacity,” he read. “That’s it,” he exclaimed.

“There may be a want of mental capacity in one of the parties. Do you think the defence would make that out?” inquired Mr. Beanson.

“It might be,” replied Miss Garr, still pursuing the thought into which she had been drifted, and in which she had gradually drowned some of her indignation at the unsuspecting Archibald. Lang’s late conduct may have been dictated by insanity—proposing to Amelia after engaging himself to her, Sophia Garr! “Really, Mr. Beanson, it might be.”

“Indeed, madam? Then we must guard against that!”

The client looked inquiringly at the lawyer, who was for a moment wrapped in a mute study. “Can the defence, madam,” demanded Mr. Beanson at last, “can—can they prove that you have ever been in Stockton, or any private insane asylum?”

Here the reader who has visited the Sandwich Islands may pause to congratulate himself. Remembering the crater of Mauna Loa, he will have a more vivid idea of Miss Garr’s feelings than anything but that molten sea of lava could possibly suggest. Sophia jumped indignantly to her feet, and poured a tide of epithets, so seething-hot, over the head of the astonished Archibald, that for a moment he succumbed before it, blank and still as some patriarchal porpoise, lava-cooked and cast upon the beach of Hawaii.

“You wretch!” was the comparatively calm peroration of Miss Garr, “you—you horrid wretch! I have a mind to sue you for slander. How dare you put such a stigma on my character when you know, or ought to know, that George Lang is the one that is insane!”

“Oh, ah! George Lang, my employer?” exclaimed Mr. Beanson, coming to life. “That’s the gentleman you would prosecute. Well, now!”

To the intense astonishment of Archibald an increasing bitterness of manner succeeded, and he said, “If you are not insane, madam, you are certainly in your dotage. Why, look at this desk, here! Every one of these papers is a deed made out by order of the gentleman you would rob. Go along with your breach of promise! The court would send you to an asylum as sure as guns!”

Mr. Beanson’s face grew brighter as his indignation grew, and his entire head was girt about with an unwonted appearance of youth. Sophia’s rough handling, like sandpaper upon an antique bust, had rubbed some of the yellow mould away—had lifted that mysterious veil woven by the semblance of years, and had opened up to her eyes and ours, the perfect glories of Mr. Beanson’s Golden Age.

“You came here, no doubt, madam,” continued Archibald, with no such interruption as the foregoing paragraph; “in fact, I feel sure, madam, you came here to prevail on me to enter into a plot against my only present employer, and may be (here Mr. Beanson was very bitter in the curl of his lip and his general tone), may be?—no, I am sure, too, that you would attempt to marry me at last, as a meet punishment for being your accomplice. Oh! I see it in your eye, madam; you need not deny it!”

Miss Garr, at one time or another, since she had read Mr. Beanson’s name on his card, might have thought vaguely of “prospecting” him for a husband, in case of the failure of all other claims; but to do her justice, it was only ineffable rage that Archibald saw in her eye, as he repeated—though Sophia had not attempted to speak—“You need not deny it, for I tell you I see it in your eye! and as for Mr. Lang, I am doing his notary business, and a great deal of it, too, especially of late. He is selling hosts of property—hosts of property, madam, in the name and with the written consent of the Claytons. Why, the very heaviest sale is to be made to-day. Now what does this mutual confidence presuppose? Madam,” said Mr. Beanson, rising and assuming an air of mock politeness, “if you were as sure that you are sane, as I am that he is going to marry the daughter of Mrs. Clayton, you would not have taken up so much of my valuable time from Mr. Lang’s business. But, madam, this is the door,” concluded Mr. Beanson with an urbane wave of the hand, as he resumed his seat and began silently to arrange the papers before him.

Miss Sophia, white with rage, did not stir or speak.

Involuntarily the hands of Mr. Beanson paused in the labours they had undertaken, and fell heavily, one on each side of his chair, almost to the floor. As he sat and gazed at the still shape before him, the idea of the ghost in Hamlet was suddenly suggested to the fertile mind of Mr. Beanson. This was not a remarkable conception, taken apart from its consequences; yet Mr. Beanson, forgetting the matter of gender, not only congratulated himself on the aptness of the allusion, though not expressed in words, but actually chuckled, and at last, laughed outright, as an encouragement to his own genius.

Had it not been for this fatal laugh, Miss Garr could have spoken, and her speech might have been terrible. But something came perversely up into her throat. Turning briskly upon her heel, she darted through the door to be in advance of her own tears; and she and the first brief of Mr. Archibald Beanson disappeared together.