friend. A
writer, did you say? What does he write?"

"Fiction."

"What, novels?"

"And dramas and all."

Lady Bassett sighed incredulously. "I should never think of going to
Fiction for wisdom."

"When the Family Calas were about to be executed unjustly, with the
consent of all the lawyers and statesmen in France, one man in a nation
saw the error, and fought for the innocent, and saved them; and that
one wise man in a nation of fools was a writer of fiction."

"Oh! a learned Oxonian can always answer a poor ignorant thing like me.
One swallow does not make summer, for all that."

"But this writer's fictions are not like the novels you read; they are
works of laborious research. Besides, he is a lawyer, as well as a
novelist."

"Oh, if he is a lawyer!"

"Then I may write?"

"Yes," said Lady Bassett, despondingly.

"What is to become of Oldfield?"

"Send him to the drawing-room. I will go down and endure him for
another hour. You can write your letter here, and then please come and
relieve me of Mr. Negative."

She rang, and ordered coffee and tea into the drawing-room; and Mr.
Oldfield found her very cold company.

In half an hour Mr. Angelo came down, looking flushed and very
handsome; and Lady Bassett had some fresh tea made for him.

This done she bade the gentlemen goodnight, and went to her room. Here
she found Mary Wells full of curiosity to know whether the lawyer would
get Sir Charles out of the asylum.

Lady Bassett gave loose to her indignation, and said nothing was to be
expected from such a Nullity. "Mary, he could not see. I gave him every
opportunity. I walked slowly down the room before him after dinner; and
I came into the drawing-room and moved about, and yet he could not
see."

"Then you will have to tell him, that is all."

"Never; no more shall you. I'll not trust my fate, and Sir Charles's,
to a man that has no eyes."

For this feminine reason she took a spite against poor Oldfield; but to
Mr. Angelo she suppressed the real reason, and entered into that ardent
gentleman's grounds of discontent, though these alone would not have
entirely dissolved her respect for the family solicitor.

Next afternoon Angelo came to her in great distress and ire. "Beaten!
beaten! and all through our adversaries having more talent. Mr. Bassett
did not appear at first. Wheeler excused him on the ground that his
wife was seriously ill through the fright. Bassett's servants were
called, and sw