was dug, the bell tolled, and a man bowed double with
grief saw his child and his ambition laid in the dust.

Lady Bassett heard the bell tolled, and spoke but two words: "Poor
woman!"

She might well say so. Mrs. Bassett was in the same condition as
herself, yet this heavy blow must fall on her.

As for Richard Bassett, he sat at home, bowed down and stupid with
grief.

Wheeler came one day to console him; but, at the sight of him,
refrained from idle words. He sat down by him for an hour in silence.
Then he got up and said, "Good-by."

"Thank you, old friend, for not insulting me," said Bassett, in a
broken voice.

Wheeler took his hand, and turned away his head, and so went away, with
a tear in his eye.

A fortnight after this he came again, and found Bassett in the same
attitude, but not in the same leaden stupor. On the contrary, he was in
a state of tremor; he had lost, under the late blow, the sanguine mind
that used to carry him through everything.

The doctor was upstairs, and his wife's fate trembled in the balance.

"Stay by me," said he, "for all my nerve is gone. I'm afraid I shall
lose her; for I have just begun to value her; and that is how God deals
with his creatures--the merciful God, as they call him."

Wheeler thought it rather hard God Almighty should be blamed because
Dick Bassett had taken eight years to find out his wife's merit; but he
forbore to say so. He said kindly that he would stay.

Now while they sat in trying suspense the church-bells struck up a
merry peal.

Bassett started violently and his eyes gave a strange glare. "That's
the other!" said he; for he had heard about Lady Bassett by this time.

Then he turned pale. "They ring for him: then they are sure to toll for
me."

This foreboding was natural enough in a man so blinded by egotism as to
fancy that all creation, and the Creator himself, must take a side in
Bassett _v._ Bassett.

Nevertheless, events did not justify that foreboding. The bells had
scarcely done ringing for the happy event at Huntercombe, when joyful
feet were heard running on the stairs; joyful voices clashed together
in the passage, and in came a female servant with joyful tidings. Mrs.
Bassett was safe, and the child in the world. "The loveliest little
girl you ever saw!"

"A girl!" cried Richard Bassett with contemptuous amazement. Even his
melancholy forebodings had not gone that length. "And what have they
got at Huntercombe?"

"Oh, it