"There's nothing he likes so much as that; but it is the reading of
those horrible long papers by gaslight. I wouldn't mind how much he
had to talk, nor yet how much he had to write, if it wasn't for all
that weary reading. Of course he does have juniors with him now,
but I don't find that it makes much difference. He's at it every
night, sheet after sheet; and though he always says he's coming up
immediately, it's two or three before he's in bed."

Mrs. Quickenham was three or four years older than her sister, and
Mr. Quickenham was twelve years older than his wife. The lawyer
therefore was considerably senior to the clergyman. He was at the
Chancery bar, and after the usual years of hard and almost profitless
struggling, had worked himself up into a position in which his income
was very large, and his labours never ending. Since the days in which
he had begun to have before his eyes some idea of a future career
for himself, he had always been struggling hard for a certain goal,
struggling successfully, and yet never getting nearer to the thing
he desired. A scholarship had been all in all to him when he left
school; and, as he got it, a distant fellowship already loomed before
his eyes. That attained was only a step towards his life in London.
His first brief, anxiously as it had been desired, had given no real
satisfaction. As soon as it came to him it was a rung of the ladder
already out of sight. And so it had been all through his life, as he
advanced upwards, making a business, taking a wife to himself, and
becoming the father of many children. There was always something
before him which was to make him happy when he reached it. His gown
was of silk, and his income almost greater than his desires; but he
would fain sit upon the Bench, and have at any rate his evenings for
his own enjoyment. He firmly believed now, that that had been the
object of his constant ambition; though could he retrace his thoughts
as a young man, he would find that in the early days of his forensic
toils, the silent, heavy, unillumined solemnity of the judge had
appeared to him to be nothing in comparison with the glittering
audacity of the successful advocate. He had tried the one, and might
probably soon try the other. And when that time shall have come,
and Mr. Quickenham shall sit upon his seat of honour in the new
Law Courts, passing long, long hours in the tedious labours of
conscientious painful listening; then he will look forwar