The superintendent smiled, and said, in his finely ironical way, "I never denied, madam, that Jack was cunning." From that date, my aunt's venturesome enterprise advanced towards completion with a rapidity that astonished us.
Applying, in the first instance, to the friend of her late husband, holding a position in the Royal Household, she was met once more by the inevitable objections to her design.

She vainly pleaded that her purpose was to try the experiment modestly in the one pitiable case of Jack Straw, and that she would willingly leave any further development of her husband's humane project to persons better qualified to encounter dangers and difficulties than herself.

The only concession that she could obtain was an appointment for a second interview, in the presence of a gentleman whose opinion it would be important to consult.

He was one of the physicians attached to the Court, and he was known to be a man of liberal views in his profession.

Mrs.Wagner would do well, in her own interests, to be guided by his disinterested advice.
Keeping this second appointment, my aunt provided herself with a special means of persuasion in the shape of her husband's diary, containing his unfinished notes on the treatment of insanity by moral influence.
As she had anticipated, the physician invited to advise her was readier to read the notes than to listen to her own imperfect explanation of the object in view.