turned upon her with
one accord.

"From where?"

"Fr' Huntercombe itsel'. Et isna for you, nor for you, missy. Et's for
the mesterress."

She marched proudly up to Mrs. Bassett and laid the letter down on the
table; then drew back a step or two, and, being Scotch, coolly waited
to hear the contents. Richard Basset, being English, told her she need
not stay.

Mrs. Bassett cast a bewildered look at her husband and daughter, then
opened the letter quietly; read it quietly; and, having read it, took
out her handkerchief and began to cry quietly.

Ruperta cried, "Oh, mamma!" and in a moment had one long arm round her
mother's neck, while the other hand seized the letter, and she read it
aloud, cheek to cheek; but, before she got to an end, her mother's
tears infected her, and she must whimper too.

"Here are a couple of geese," said Richard Bassett. "Can't you write a
civil reply to a civil letter without sniveling? I'll answer the letter
for you."

"No!" said Mrs. Bassett.

Richard was amazed: Ruperta ditto.

The little woman had never dealt in "Noes," least of all to her
husband; and besides this was such a plump "No." It came out of her
mouth like a marble.

I think the sound surprised even herself a little, for she proceeded to
justify it at once. "I have been a better wife than a Christian this
many years. But there's a limit. And, Richard, I should never have
married you if you had told me we were to be at war all our lives with
our next neighbor, that everybody respects. To live in the country, and
not speak to our only neighbor, that is a life I never would have left
my father's house for. Not that I complain: if you have been bitter to
them, you have always been good and kind to me; and I hope I have done
my best to deserve it; but when a sick lady, and perhaps dying, holds
out her hand to me---write her one of your cold-blooded letters! That I
WON'T. Reply? my reply will be just putting on my bonnet and going to
her this afternoon. It is Passion-week, too; and that's not a week to
play the heathen. Poor lady! I've seen in her sweet eyes this many
years that she would gladly be friends with me; and she never passed me
close but she bowed to me, in church or out, even when we were at
daggers drawn. She is a lady, a real lady, every inch. But it is not
that altogether. No, if a sick woman called me to her bedside this
week, I'd go, whether she wrote from Huntercombe Hall or the poorest
house in the plac