Bassett Manor for a while."

"For shame!" said Richard. "The man had his faults, but he had his good
qualities too: a high-spirited gentleman, beloved by his friends and
respected by all the county. His successor will find it hard to
reconcile the county to his loss."

Wheeler stared, and then grinned satirically.

This eulogy was never repeated, for Sir Charles proved ungrateful--he
omitted to die, after all.

Attended by first-rate physicians, tenderly nursed and watched by Lady
Bassett and Mary Wells, he got better by degrees; and every stage of
his slow but hopeful progress was communicated to the servants and the
village, and to the ladies and gentlemen who rode up to the door every
day and left their cards of inquiry.

The most attentive of all these was the new rector, a young clergyman,
who had obtained the living by exchange. He was a man highly gifted
both in body and mind--a swarthy Adonis, whose large dark eyes from the
very first turned with glowing admiration on the blonde beauties of
Lady Bassett.

He came every day to inquire after her husband; and she sometimes left
the sufferer a minute or two to make her report to him in person. At
other times Mary Wells was sent to him. That artful girl soon
discovered what had escaped her mistress's observation.

The bulletins were favorable, and welcomed on all sides.

Richard Bassett alone was incredulous. "I want to see him about again,"
said he. "Sir Charles is not the man to lie in bed if he was really
better. As for the doctors, they flatter a fellow till the last moment.
Let me see him on his legs, and then I'll believe he is better."

Strange to say, obliging Fate granted Richard Bassett this moderate
request. One frosty but sunny afternoon, as he was inspecting his
coming domain from "The Heir's Tower," he saw the Hall door open, and a
muffled figure come slowly down the steps between two women: It was Sir
Charles, feeble but convalescent. He crept about on the sunny gravel
for about ten minutes, and then his nurses conveyed him tenderly in
again.

This sight, which might have touched with pity a more generous nature,
startled Richard Bassett, and then moved his bile. "I was a fool," said
he; "nothing will ever kill that man. He will see me out; see us all
out. And that Mary Wells nurses him, and I dare say in love with him by
this time; the fools can't nurse a man without. Curse the whole pack of
ye!" he yelled, and turned away in rage and disg