"Whatever you say I'll stand to."

CHAPTER XVIII.

MARY WELLS, like other uneducated women, was not accustomed to think
long and earnestly on any one subject; to use an expression she once
applied with far less justice to her sister, her mind was like running
water.

But gestation affects the brains of such women, and makes them think
more steadily, and sometimes very acutely; added to which, the peculiar
dangers and difficulties that beset this girl during that anxious
period stimulated her wits to the very utmost. Often she sat quite
still for hours at a time, brooding and brooding, and asking herself
how she could turn each new and unexpected event to her own benefit.
Now so much does mental force depend on that exercise of keen and long
attention, in which her sex is generally deficient, that this young
woman's powers were more than doubled since the day she first
discovered her condition, and began to work her brains night and day
for her defense.

Gradually, as events I have related unfolded themselves, she caught a
glimpse of this idea, that if she could get her mistress to have a
secret, her mistress would help her to keep her own. Hence her
insidious whispers, and her constant praises of Mr. Angelo, who, she
saw, was infatuated with Lady Bassett. Yet the designing creature was
actually fond of her mistress: and so strangely compounded is a heart
of this low kind that the extraordinary step she now took was half
affectionate impulse, half egotistical design.

She made a motion with her hand inviting Lady Bassett to listen, and
stepped into Sir Charles's room.

"Childless! childless! childless!"

"Hush, sir," said Mary Wells. "Don't say so. We shan't be many mouths
without one, please Heaven."

Sir Charles shook his head sadly.

"Don't you believe me?"

"No."

"What, did ever I tell you a lie?"

"No: but you are mistaken. She would have told me."

"Well, sir, my lady is young and shy, and I think she is afraid of
disappointing you after all; for you know, sir, there's many a slip
'twixt the cup and the lip. But 'tis as I tell you, sir."

Sir Charles was much agitated, and said he would give her a hundred
guineas if that was true. "Where is my darling wife? Why do I hear this
through a servant?"

Mary Wells cast a look at the door, and said, for Lady Bassett to hear,
"She is receiving company. Now, sir, I have told you good news; will
you do something to oblige me? You shouldn't speak