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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 pret-
ty freely: she’d probably make over a part of it to each of
her sisters. But after that she’d come to her senses, remem-
ber she has still a lifetime before her, and live within her
means.’
‘Well, you have worked it out,’ said the old man helpless-
ly. ‘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 con-

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