"And she struck you as being all right?" he asked at the end. "You felt the thing to be genuine? She really seemed to mean it when she said that this time it really was the end of her gambling?"
"Absolutely," said Ben.
"She must be helped," said Uncle Paul, and he went to his desk and wrote a cheque for two hundred pounds made out to his niece. "Give her this. But see that she pays it back to you, no matter in how small instalments, beginning with her next allowance. I'm afraid she must deny herself a lot of little luxuries; but that will be good for her. Yes," he said, "she ought to go without all kinds of things she's used to. But you'll talk to her like a mother and tell her so, of course."
"A mother!" Ben exclaimed. "Why, I'm not more than three years older."
"Age has nothing to do with it," said Uncle Paul.
"You are the sweetest thing," said Ben, as she folded the cheque and put it in her bag. And she hurried home.
"Well," said Patrick, putting his head in at Ben's door the next afternoon, "did it work?"
"To perfection," said Ben.
"It's a wonderful method," said Patrick.
"I prefer it to all others," said Ben. "And, by the way, I've got a new assistant. A Miss Marquand. We're getting on, you see."