s. Nicholson stated her case with simplicity and
directness.

'It is my ward,' she said, 'Barbara Monypenny. I must tell you that she
was left in my charge till she is twenty-six. I and her lawyers make her
an allowance out of her property, which she is to get when she marries
with my consent, at whatever age.'

'May I ask how old the lady is at present?' said Merton.

'She is twenty-two.'

'Your kindness in taking charge of her is not not wholly uncompensated?'

'No, an allowance is made to me out of the estate.'

'An allowance which ends on her marriage, if she marries with your
consent?'

'Yes, it ends then. Her uncle trusted me a deal more than he trusted
Barbara. She was strange from a child. Fond of the men,' as if that
were an unusual and unbecoming form of philanthropy.

'I see, and she being an heiress, the testator was anxious to protect her
youth and innocence?'

Mrs. Nicholson merely sniffed, but the sniff was affirmative, though
sarcastic.

'Her property, I suppose, is considerable? I do not ask from impertinent
curiosity, nor for exact figures. But, as a question of business, may we
call the fortune considerable?'

'Most people do. It runs into six figures.'

Merton, who had no mathematical head, scribbled on a piece of paper. The
result of his calculations (which I, not without some fever of the brow,
have personally verified) proved that 'six figures' might be anything
between 100,000_l_. and 999,000_l_. 19_s_. 11.75_d_.

'Certainly it is very considerable,' Merton said, after a few minutes
passed in arithmetical calculation. 'Am I too curious if I ask what is
the source of this opulence?'

'"Wilton's Panmedicon, or Heal All," a patent medicine. He sold the
patent and retired.'

Merton shuddered.

'It would be Pammedicum if it could be anything,' he thought, 'but it
can't, linguistically speaking.'

'Invaluable as a subterfuge,' said Mrs. Nicholson, obviously with an
indistinct recollection of the advertisement and of the properties of the
drug.

Merton construed the word as 'febrifuge,' silently, and asked: 'Have you
taken the young lady much into society: has she had many opportunities of
making a choice? You are dissatisfied with the choice, I understand,
which she has made?'

'I don't let her see anybody if I can help it. Fire and powder are
better kept apart, and she is powder, a minx! Only a fisher or two comes
to the Perch, that's the inn at Walton-on-Dove,