, which had been hitherto only a
deep disappointment, became in his eyes a calamity that outweighed his
many blessings. He had now narrowly escaped dying without an heir, and
this seemed to sink into his mind, and, co-operating with the
concussion his brain had received, brought him into a morbid state. He
brooded on it, and spoke of it, and got back to it from every other
topic, in a way that distressed Lady Bassett unspeakably. She consoled
him bravely; but often, when she was alone, her gentle courage gave
way, and she cried bitterly to herself.

Her distress had one effect she little expected; it completed what her
invariable kindness had begun, and actually won the heart of a servant.
Those who really know that tribe will agree with me that this was a
marvelous conquest. Yet so it was; Mary Wells conceived for her a real
affection, and showed it by unremitting attention, and a soft and
tender voice, that soothed Lady Bassett, and drew many a silent but
grateful glance from her dove-like eyes.

Mary listened, and heard enough to blame Sir Charles for his
peevishness, and she began to throw out little expressions of
dissatisfaction at him; but these were so promptly discouraged by the
faithful wife that she drew in again and avoided that line. But one
day, coming softly as a cat, she heard Sir Charles and Lady Bassett
talking over their calamity. Sir Charles was saying that it was
Heaven's curse; that all the poor people in the village had children;
that Richard Bassett's weak, puny little wife had brought him an heir,
and was about to make him a parent again; he alone was marked out and
doomed to be the last of his race. "And yet," said he, "if I had
married any other woman, and you had married any other man, we should
have had children by the dozen, I suppose."

Upon the whole, though he said nothing palpably unjust, he had the tone
of a man blaming his wife as the real cause of their joint calamity,
under which she suffered a deeper, nobler, and more silent anguish than
himself. This was hard to bear; and when Sir Charles went away, Mary
Wells ran in, with an angry expression on the tip of her tongue.

She found Lady Bassett in a pitiable condition, lying rather than
leaning on the table, with her hair loose about her, sobbing as if her
heart would break.

All that was good in Mary Wells tugged at her heart-strings. She flung
herself on her knees beside her, and seizing her mistress's hand, and
drawing it to