'This is how he got round her. He said to me that night, in private: "Mrs. Nicholson," said he, "your niece is a very interesting historical subject. I am deeply anxious, apart from my own passion for her, to relieve her from a singular but not very uncommon delusion." '"Meaning her lover in cocky," I said. '"There is no lover in cocky," says he. '"No Dr. Ingles!" said I. '"Yes, there _is_ a Dr. Ingles, but he is not her lover, and your niece never met him. I bicycled to Tutbury lately, and, after examining the scene of Queen Mary's captivity, I made a few inquiries. What I had always suspected proved to be true. Dr. Ingles was not present at that ball at the Bear at Tutbury." 'Well,' Mrs. Nicholson went on, 'you might have knocked me down with a feather! I had never asked my second cousins the question, not wanting them to guess about my affairs. But down I sat, and wrote to Maria, and got her answer. Barbara never saw Dr. Ingles! only heard the girls mention him, and his going to the war. And then, after that, by Mr. Jephson's advice, I went and gave Barbara my mind. She should marry Mr. Jephson, who saved her life, or be the laughing stock of the country. I showed her up to herself, with her glass ball, and her teleopathy, and her sham love-letters, that she wrote herself, and all her humbug. She cried, and she fainted, and she carried on, but I went at her whenever she could listen to reason. So she said "Yes," and I am the happy woman.' 'And Mr. Jephson is to be congratulated on so sensible and veracious a bride,' said Merton. 'Oh, he says it is by no means an uncommon case, and that he has effected a complete cure, and they will be as happy as idiots,' said Mrs. Nicholson, as she rose to depart. She left Merton pensive, and not disposed to overrate human nature. 'But there can't be many fellows like Jephson,' he said. 'I wonder how much the six figures run to?' But that question was never answered to his satisfaction. VII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE EXEMPLARY EARL I. The Earl's Long-Lost Cousin