and _they_ are mostly old
gentlemen, pottering with their rods and things. If a young man comes to
the inn, I take care to trapes after her through the nasty damp meadows.'

'Is the young lady an angler?'

'She is--most unwomanly I call it.'

Merton's idea of the young lady rose many degrees. 'You said the young
lady was "strange from a child, very strange. Fond of the men." Happily
for our sex, and for the world, it is not so very strange or unusual to
take pity on us.'

'She has always been queer.'

'You do not hint at any cerebral disequilibrium?' asked Merton.

'Would you mind saying that again?' asked Mrs. Nicholson.

'I meant nothing wrong _here_?' Merton said, laying his finger on his
brow.

'No, not so bad as that,' said Mrs. Nicholson; 'but just queer. Uncommon.
Tells odd stories about--nonsense. She is wearing with her dreams. She
reads books on, I don't know how to call it--Tipsy-cake, Tipsicakical
Search. Histories, _I_ call it.'

'Yes, I understand,' said Merton; 'Psychical Research.'

'That's it, and Hyptonism,' said Mrs. Nicholson, as many ladies do.

'Ah, Hyptonism, so called from its founder, Hypton, the eminent Anglo-
French chemist; he was burned at Rome, one of the latest victims of the
Inquisition,' said Merton.

'I don't hold with Popery, sir, but it served _him_ right.'

'That is all the queerness then!'

'That and general discontentedness.'

'Girls will be girls,' said Merton; 'she wants society.'

'Want must be her master then,' said Mrs. Nicholson stolidly.

'But about the man of her choice, have you anything against him?'

'No, but nothing _for_ him: I never even saw him.'

'Then where did Miss Monypenny make his acquaintance?'

'Well, like a fool, I let her go to pass Christmas with some distant
cousins of my own, who should have known better. They stupidly took her
to a dance, at Tutbury, and there she met him: just that once.'

'And they became engaged on so short an acquaintance?'

'Not exactly that. She was not engaged when she came home, and did not
seem to mean to be. She did talk of him a lot. He had got round her
finely: told her that he was going out to the war, and that they were
sister spirits. He had dreamed of meeting her, he said, and that was why
he came to the ball, for he did not dance. He said he believed they had
met in a state of pre--something; meaning, if you understand me, before
they were born, which could not be the case: she no