Mrs. Tarrant asked the young men from the Law
School about their studies, and whether they meant to follow them up
seriously; said she thought some of the laws were very unjust, and she
hoped they meant to try and improve them. She had suffered by the laws
herself, at the time her father died; she hadn't got half the prop'ty
she should have got if they had been different. She thought they should
be for public matters, not for people's private affairs; the idea always
seemed to her to keep you down if you _were_ down, and to hedge you in
with difficulties. Sometimes she thought it was a wonder how she had
developed in the face of so many; but it was a proof that freedom was
everywhere, if you only knew how to look for it.
The two young men were in the best humour; they greeted these sallies
with a merriment of which, though it was courteous in form, Olive was by
no means unable to define the spirit. They talked naturally more with
Verena than with her mother; and while they were so engaged Mrs. Tarrant
explained to her who they were, and how one of them, the smaller, who
was not quite so spruce, had brought the other, his particular friend,
to introduce him. This friend, Mr. Burrage, was from New York; he was
very fashionable, he went out a great deal in Boston ("I have no doubt
you know some of the places," said Mrs.
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