The ray of light through the keyhole was shut off, and I saw standing in the porch before me the form of Mrs. Venville, the girl's mother, who had died two years before. The ray of white light arrested by her filled her as a lamp--was diffused as a mild glow from her. "Halloo, mother, what brings you here?" asked the girl. "Gwendoline, I have come to warn you back. You cannot enter; you have not got the key." "The key, mother?" "Yes, everyone who would pass within must have his or her own key." "Well, where am I to get one?" "It must be forged for you, Gwen. You are wholly unfit to enter. What good have you ever done to deserve it?" "Why, mother, everyone knows I'm an awfully good sort." "No one in here knows it. That is no qualification." "And I always dressed in good taste." "Nor is that." "And I was splendid at lawn tennis." Her mother shook her head. "Look here, little mummy. I won a brooch at the archery match." "That will not do, Gwendoline. What good have you ever done to anyone else beside yourself?" The girl considered a minute, then laughed, and said: "I put into a raffle at a bazaar--no, it was a bran-pie for an orphanage--and I drew out a pair of braces. I had rare fun over those braces, I sold them to Captain Fitzakerly for half a crown, and that I gave to the charity." "You went for what you could get, not what you could give." Then the mother stepped on one side, and the ray shot directly at the girl. I saw that it had something of the quality of the X-ray. It was not arrested by her garments, or her flesh or muscles. It revealed in her breast, in her brain--penetrating her whole body--a hard, dark core. "Black Ram, I bet," said I. Now Black Ram is the local name for a substance found in our land, especially in the low ground that ought to be the most fertile, but is not so, on account of this material found in it. The substance lies some two or three feet below the surface, and forms a crust of the consistency of cast iron. No plough can possibly be driven through it. No water can percolate athwart it, and consequently where it is, there the superincumbent soil is resolved into a quagmire. No tree can grow in it, for the moment the taproot touches the Black Ram the tree dies. Of what Black Ram consists is more than I can say; the popular opinion is that it is a bastard manganese. Now I happen to own several fields accursed with the presence in them of Black Ram--fields that ought to be luxuriant meadows, but which, in consequence of its presence, are worth almost nothing at all. "No, Gwen," said her mother, looking sorrowfully at her, "there is not a chance of your admission till you have got rid of the Black Ram that is in you." "Sure," said I, as I slapped my knee, "I thought I knew the article, and now my opinion has been confirmed." "How can I get rid of it?" asked the girl.