y wealth and titles. No wife in this parish is so poor as I;
powerless in the folds of a serpent. I can't see my husband without an
order from _him._ He is all power, I and mine all weakness." She raised
her clinched fists, she clutched her beautiful hair as if she would
tear it out by the roots. "I shall, go mad! I shall go mad! No!" said
she, all of a sudden. "That will not do. That is what he wants--and
then my darling _would_ be defenseless. I will not go mad." Then
suddenly grinding her white teeth: "I'll teach him to drive a lady to
despair. I'll fight."

She descended, almost without a break, from the fury of a Pythoness to
a strange calm. Oh! then it is her sex are dangerous.

"Don't look so pale," said she, and she actually smiled. "All is fair
against so foul a villain. You and I will defeat him. Dress me, Mary."

Mary Wells, carried away by the unusual violence of a superior mind,
was quite bewildered.

Lady Bassett smiled a strange smile, and said, "I'll show you how to
dress me;" and she did give her a lesson that astonished her.

"And now," said Lady Bassett, "I shall dress you." And she took a loose
full dress out of her wardrobe, and made Mary Wells put it on; but
first she inserted some stuffing so adroitly that Mary seemed very
buxom, but what she wished to hide was hidden. Not so Lady Bassett
herself. Her figure looked much rounder than in the last dress she
wore.

With all this she was late for dinner, and when she went down Mr.
Angelo had just finished telling Mr. Oldfield of the mishap to the
villagers.

Lady Bassett came in animated and beautiful.

Dinner was announced directly, and a commonplace conversation kept up
till the servants were got rid of. She then told Mr. Oldfield how she
had been refused admittance to Sir Charles at Bellevue House, a plain
proof, to her mind, they knew her husband was not insane; and begged
him to act with energy, and get Sir Charles out before his reason could
be permanently injured by the outrage and the horror of his situation.

This led to a discussion, in which Mr. Angelo and Lady Bassett threw
out various suggestions, and Mr. Oldfield cooled their ardor with sound
objections. He was familiar with the Statutes de Lunatico, and said
they had been strictly observed both in the capture of Sir Charles and
in Mr. Salter's refusal to let the wife see the husband. In short, he
appeared either unable or unwilling to see anything except the strong
legal posit