Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/117

 looked well enough and lived long, but she was either an invalid or a case of disordered nerves. The sympathy accorded by a husband to supposed illness is a great leverage and she influenced him in many ways to his disadvantage. She wanted the comparatively greater importance of the Mercers to be conceded. She prevailed upon him to move away from the house in which he had always lived to a more healthful locality. I know of no greater misfortune that can happen to the career of a man of ability than to be out of sympathy with his own people in a fateful crisis in which they are right. Mr. McCall had been a Whig and had become a Democrat. Throughout the war his wife openly avowed her hope for the success of the Southern cause, and he was frequently denounced as a Copperhead. He never mentioned the subject, but when he failed to be re-elected to the vestry of St. Peter's Church, with which he had long been connected, and when his clients began to drop away and the students, who before had striven to enter his office, forsook him, intelligent and sensitive, he felt the change keenly. At the time I entered his office, the warmth of feeling existing at the outset of the war had somewhat abated and the genuine respect for Mr. McCall had begun to revive.

I reached the offices, No. 224 South Fourth Street, on the west side of Fourth Street below Walnut, in the early morning. They consisted of two large rooms on the ground floor. No one else had yet arrived. Securing a book, I selected a large and comfortable chair, drew it to the front window and began my studies. Presently a tall young man with dark whiskers entered, and coming over to me said: “It is a custom in this office that the oldest student occupies that chair and I will thank you to give it to me.” I surrendered it with due meekness and had received my first lesson in discipline. The young gentleman was named J. Duross O'Brien, an earnest, good-hearted and agreeable fellow. His aunt, a prosperous milliner, educated him. The old-time ways still prevailed in the office and the Rh