ctness than
in yours. Besides, I know your heart, and don't care to be told of your
errors in judgment, no, not even by yourself. Sorry to offend an
authoress; but I decline to read your book, and, more than that, I
forbid you the subject entirely for the next thirty years, at least.
Let by-gones be by-gones."

That eventful morning Mr. Rutland called and proposed to Ruperta. She
declined politely, but firmly.

She told Mrs. Bassett, and Mrs. Bassett told Richard in a nervous way,
but his answer surprised her. He said he was very glad of it; Ruperta
could do better.

Mrs. Bassett could not resist the pleasure of telling Lady Bassett. She
went over on purpose, with her husband's consent.

Lady Bassett asked to see Ruperta. "By all means," said Richard
Bassett, graciously.

On her return to Highmore, Ruperta asked leave to go to the Hall every
day and nurse Lady Bassett. "They will let her die else," said she.
Richard Bassett assented to that, too. Ruperta, for some weeks, almost
lived at the Hall, and in this emergency revealed great qualities. As
the malevolent small-pox, passing through the gentle cow, comes out the
sovereign cow-pox, so, in this gracious nature, her father's vices
turned to their kindred virtues; his obstinacy of purpose shone here a
noble constancy; his audacity became candor, and his cunning wisdom.
Her intelligence saw at once that Lady Bassett was pining to death, and
a weak-minded nurse would be fatal: she was all smiles and brightness,
and neglected no means to encourage the patient.

With this view, she promised to plight her faith to Compton the moment
Lady Bassett should be restored to health; and so, with hopes and
smiles, and the novelty of a daughter's love, she fought with death for
Lady Bassett, and at last she won the desperate battle.

This did Richard Bassett's daughter for her father's late enemy.

The grateful husband wrote to Bassett, and now acknowledged _his_
obligation.

A civil, mock-modest reply from Richard Bassett.

From this things went on step by step, till at last Compton and
Ruperta, at eighteen years of age, were formally betrothed.

Thus the children's love wore out the father's hate.

That love, so troubled at the outset, left, by degrees, the region of
romance, and rippled smoothly through green, flowery meadows.

Ruperta showed her lover one more phase of girlhood; she, who had been
a precocious and forward child, and then a shy and silent girl,