‘Silly Johnny to silly Jenny,’ put in Mrs. Nicholson.

‘A pair with ideas so absurd could not possibly be happy.’  Merton reasoned.  ’Why don’t you take her into the world, and show her life?  With her fortune and with you to take her about, she would soon forget this egregiously foolish romance.’

’And me to have her snapped up by some whipper-snapper that calls himself a lord?  Not me, Mr. Graham,’ said Mrs. Nicholson.  ’The money that her uncle made by the Panmedicon is not going to be spent on horses, and worse, if I can help it.’

‘Then,’ said Merton, ’all I can do for you is by our ordinary method—­to throw some young man of worth and education in the way of your ward, and attempt to—­divert her affections.’

’And have him carry her off under my very nose?  Not much, Mr. Graham.  Why where do I come in, in this pretty plan?’

’Do not suppose me to suggest anything so—­detrimental to your interests, Mrs. Nicholson.  Is your ward beautiful?’

‘A toad!’ said Mrs. Nicholson with emphasis.

’Very well.  There is no danger.  The gentleman of whom I speak is betrothed to one of the most beautiful girls in England.  They are deeply attached, and their marriage is only deferred for prudential reasons.’

‘I don’t trust one of them,’ said Mrs. Nicholson.

‘Very well, madam,’ answered Merton severely; ’I have done all that experience can suggest.  The gentleman of whom I speak has paid especial attention to the mental delusions under which your ward is labouring, and has been successful in removing them in some cases.  But as you reject my suggestion’—­he rose, so did Mrs. Nicholson—­’I have the honour of wishing you a pleasant journey back to Derbyshire.’

‘A bullet may hit him,’ said Mrs. Nicholson with much acerbity.  ’That’s my best hope.’

Then Merton bowed her out.

’The old woman will never let the girl marry anybody, except some adventurer, who squares her by giving her the full value of her allowance out of the estate,’ thought Merton, adding ’I wonder how much it is!  Six figures is anything between a hundred thousand and a million!’

The man he had thought of sending down to divert Miss Monypenny’s affections from the young doctor was Jephson, the History coach, at that hour waiting for a professorship to enable him to marry Miss Willoughby.

However, he dismissed Mrs. Nicholson and her ward from his mind.  About a fortnight later Merton received a letter directed in an uneducated hand.  ‘Another of the agricultural classes,’ he thought, but, looking at the close of the epistle, he saw the name of Eliza Nicholson.  She wrote: 

’Sir,—­Barbara has been at her glass ball, and seen him being carried on board a ship.  If she is right, and she is not always wrong, he is on his way home.  Though I will never give my consent, this spells botheration for me.  You can send down your young man that cures by teleopathy, a thing that has come up since my time.  He can stay at the Perch, and take a fishing rod, then they are safe to meet.  I trust him no more than the rest, but she may fall between two stools, if the doctor does come home.

   ’Your obedient servant,