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,

'Eliza Nicholson.'

'Merely to keep one's hand in,' thought Merton, 'in the present
disappointing slackness of business, I'll try to see Jephson. I don't
like or trust him. I don't think he is the man for Miss Willoughby. So,
if he ousts the doctor, and catches the heiress, why "there was more lost
at Shirramuir," as Logan says.'

Merton managed to go up to Oxford, and called on Jephson. He found him
anxious about a good, quiet, cheap place for study.

'Do you fish?' asked Merton.

'When I get the chance,' said Jephson.

He was a dark, rather clumsy, but not unprepossessing young don, with a
very slight squint.

'If you fish did you ever try the Perch--I mean an inn, not the fish of
the same name--at Walton-on-Dove? A pretty quiet place, two miles of
water, local history perhaps interesting. It is not very far from
Tutbury, where Queen Mary was kept, I think.'

'It sounds well,' said Jephson; 'I'll write to the landlord and ask about
terms.'

'You could not do better,' said Merton, and he took his leave.

'Now, am I,' thought Merton as he walked down the Broad, 'to put Jephson
up to it? If I don't, of course I can't "reap the benefit of one single
pin" for the Society: Jephson not being a member. But the money, anyhow,
would come from that old harpy out of the girl's estate. _Olet_! I
don't like the fragrance of that kind of cash. But if the girl really is
plain, "a toad," nothing may happen. On the other hand, Jephson is sure
to hear about her position from local gossip--that she is rich, and so
on. Perhaps she is not so very plain. They are sure to meet, or Mrs.
Nicholson will bring them together in her tactful way. She has not much
time to lose if the girl's glass ball yarn is true, and it _may_ be true
by a fluke. Jephson is rather bitten by a taste for all that
"teleopathy" business, as the old Malaprop calls it. On the whole, I
shall say no more to him, b