to do that?"

"By no means. But she has less money than she has ever had before. Her
father then gave her everything, because he used to spend his capital.
She has nothing but the crumbs of that feast to live on, and she doesn't
really know how meagre they are--she has yet to learn it. My mother has
told me all about it. Isabel will learn it when she's really thrown upon
the world, and it would be very painful to me to think of her coming to
the consciousness of a lot of wants she should be unable to satisfy."

"I've left her five thousand pounds. She can satisfy a good many wants
with that."

"She can indeed. But she would probably spend it in two or three years."

"You think she'd be extravagant then?"

"Most certainly," said Ralph, smiling serenely.

Poor Mr. Touchett's acuteness was rapidly giving place to pure
confusion. "It would merely be a question of time then, her spending the
larger sum?"

"No--though at first I think she'd plunge into that pretty freely: she'd
probably make over a part of it to each of her sisters. But after that
she'd come to her senses, remember she has still a lifetime before her,
and live within her means."

"Well, you HAVE worked it out," said the old man helplessly. "You do
take an interest in her, certainly."

"You can't consistently say I go too far. You wished me to go further."

"Well, I don't know," Mr. Touchett answered. "I don't think I enter into
your spirit. It seems to me immoral."

"Immoral, dear daddy?"

"Well, I don't know that it's right to make everything so easy for a
person."

"It surely depends upon the person. When the person's good, your making
things easy is all to the credit of virtue. To facilitate the execution
of good impulses, what can be a nobler act?"

This was a little difficult to follow, and Mr. Touchett considered it
for a while. At last he said: "Isabel's a sweet young thing; but do you
think she's so good as that?"

"She's as good as her best opportunities," Ralph returned.

"Well," Mr. Touchett declared, "she ought to get a great many
opportunities for sixty thousand pounds."

"I've no doubt she will."

"Of course I'll do what you want," said the old man. "I only want to
understand it a little."

"Well, dear daddy, don't you understand it now?" his son caressingly
asked. "If you don't we won't take any more trouble about it. We'll
leave it alone."

Mr. Touchett lay a long time still. Ralph supposed he had given up the
attem