er nursling;
she had a voice of prodigious power and mellowness, and, provided she
was not asked, would sing lullabies and nursery rhymes from another
county that ravished the hearer. Horsemen have been known to stop in
the road to hear her sing through an open window of Huntercombe, two
hundred yards off.

Old Mr. Meyrick, a farmer well-to-do, fascinated by Mary Gosport's
singing, asked her to be his housekeeper when she should have done
nursing her charge.

She laughed in his face.

A fanatic who was staying with Sir Charles Bassett offered her three
years' education in Do, Ra, Mi, Fa, preparatory to singing at the
opera.

Declined without thanks.

Mr. Drake, after hovering shyly, at last found courage to reproach her
for deserting him and marrying a sailor.

"Teach you not to shilly-shally," said she. "Beauty won't go a-begging.
Mind you look sharper next time."

This dialogue, being held in the kitchen, gave the women some amusement
at the young farmer's expense.

One day Mr. Richard Bassett, from motives of pure affection no doubt,
not curiosity, desired mightily to inspect Mr. Bassett, aged eight
months and two days.

So, in his usual wily way, he wrote to Mrs. Gosport, asking her, for
old acquaintance' sake, to meet him in the meadow at the end of the
lawn. This meadow belonged to Sir Charles, but Richard Bassett had a
right of way through it, and could step into it by a postern, as Mary
could by an iron gate.

He asked her to come at eleven o'clock, because at that hour he
observed she walked on the lawn with her charge.

Mary Gosport came to the tryst, but without Mr. Bassett.

Richard was very polite; she cold, taciturn, observant.

At last he said, "But where's the little heir?"

She flew at him directly. "It is him you wanted, not me. Did you think
I'd bring him here--for you to kill him?"

"Come, I say."

"Ay, you'd kill him if you had a chance. But you never shall. Or if you
didn't kill him, you'd cast the evil-eye on him, for you are well known
to have the evil-eye. No; he shall outlive thee and thine, and be lord
of these here manors when thou is gone to hell, thou villain."

Mr. Richard Bassett turned pale, but did the wisest thing he could--put
his hands in his pockets, and walked into his own premises, followed,
however, by Mary Gosport, who stormed at him till he shut his postern
in her face.

She stood there trembling for a little while, then walked away, crying.

But havi