ening Lady Bassett gave Mary Wells a month's warning, and Mary
accepted it doggedly, and thought herself very cruelly used.

After this mistress and maid did not exchange an unnecessary word for
many days.

This notice to leave was very bitter to Mary Wells, for she was in the
very act of making a conquest. Young Drake, a very small farmer and
tenant of Sir Charles, had fallen in love with her, and she liked him
and had resolved he should marry her, with which view she was playing
the tender but coy maiden very prettily. But Drake, though young and
very much in love, was advised by his mother, and evidently resolved to
go the old-fashioned way--keep company a year, and know the girl before
offering the ring.

Just before her month was out a more serious trouble threatened Mary
Wells.

Her low, artful amour with Richard Bassett had led to its natural
results. By degrees she had gone further than she intended, and now the
fatal consequences looked her in the face.

She found herself in an odious position; for her growing regard for
young Drake, though not a violent attachment, was enough to set her
more and more against Richard Bassett, and she was preparing an entire
separation from the latter when the fatal truth dawned on her.

Then there was a temporary revulsion of feeling; she told her condition
to Bassett, and implored him, with many tears, to aid her to disappear
for a time and hide her misfortune, especially from her sister.

Mr. Bassett heard her, and then gave her an answer that made her blood
run cold. "Why do you come to me?" said he. "Why don't you go to the
right man--young Drake?"

He then told her he had had her watched, and she must not think to make
a fool of him. She was as intimate with the young farmer as with him,
and was in his company every day.

Mary Wells admitted that Drake was courting her, but said he was a
civil, respectful young man, who desired to make her his wife. "You
have lost me that," said she, bursting into tears; "and so, for God's
sake, show yourself a man for once, and see me through my trouble."

The egotist disbelieved, or affected not to believe her, and said,
"When there are two it is always the gentleman you girls deceive. But
you can't make a fool of me, Mrs. Drake. Marry the farmer, and I'll
give you a wedding present; that is all I can do for any other man's
sweetheart. I have got my own family to provide for, and it is all I
can contrive to make both ends mee