h Mary Wells had planned from the
first with deep malice, and that shrewd insight into human nature which
many a low woman has--the cooler she was the warmer did Richard Bassett
grow, till at last, contrasting his pale, meek little wife with this
glowing Hebe, he conceived an unholy liking for the latter. She met it
sometimes with coldness and reproaches, sometimes with affected alarm,
sometimes with a half-yielding manner, and so tormented him to her
heart's content, and undermined his affection for his wife. Thus she
revenged herself on them both to her heart's content.

But malice so perverse is apt to recoil on itself; and women, in
particular, should not undertake a long and subtle revenge of this
sort; since the strongest have their hours of weakness, and are
surprised into things they never intended. The subsequent history of
Mary Wells will exemplify this. Meantime, however, meek little Mrs.
Bassett was no match for the beauty and low cunning of her rival.

Yet a time came when she defended herself unconsciously. She did
something that made her husband most solicitous for her welfare and
happiness. He began to watch her health with maternal care, to shield
her from draughts, to take care of her diet, to indulge her in all her
whims instead of snubbing her, and to pet her, till she was the
happiest wife in England for a time. She deserved this at his hands,
for she assisted him there where his heart was fixed; she aided his
hobby; did more for it than any other creature in England could.

To return to Huntercombe Hall: the loving couple that owned it were no
longer happy. The hope of offspring was now deserting them, and the
disappointment was cruel. They suffered deeply, with this
difference--that Lady Bassett pined and Sir Charles Bassett fretted.

The woman's grief was more pure and profound than the man's. If there
had been no Richard Bassett in the world, still her bosom would have
yearned and pined, and the great cry of Nature, "Give me children or I
die," would have been in her heart, though it would never have risen to
her lips.

Sir Charles had, of course, less of this profound instinct than his
wife, but he had it too; only in him the feeling was adulterated and at
the same time imbittered by one less simple and noble. An enemy sat at
his gate. That enemy, whose enduring malice had at last begotten equal
hostility in the childless baronet, was now married, and would probably
have heirs; and, if