"La, my lady, I wouldn't for the world. Sir Charles is a perfect gentleman. Why, he gave me a sovereign only the other day for nursing of him; but he didn't ought to blame you for no fault of yourn, and to make you cry. It tears me inside out to see you cry; you that is so good to rich and poor. I wouldn't vex myself so for that: dear heart, 'twas always so; G.o.d sends meat to one house, and mouths to another."

"I could be patient if poor Sir Charles was not so unhappy," sighed Lady Ba.s.sett; "but if ever you are a wife, Mary, you will know how wretched it makes us to see a beloved husband unhappy."

"Then I'd make him happy," said Mary.

"Ah, if I only could!"

"Oh, I could tell you a way; for I have known it done; and now he is as happy as a prince. You see, my lady, some men are like children; to make them happy you must give them their own way; and so, if I was in your place, I wouldn't make two bites of a cherry, for sometimes I think he will fret himself out of the world for want on't."

"Heaven forbid!"

"It is my belief you would not be long behind him."

"No, Mary. Why should I?"

"Then--whisper, my lady!"

And, although Lady Ba.s.sett drew slightly back at this freedom, Mary Wells poured into her ear a proposal that made her stare and shiver.

As for the girl's own face, it was as unmoved as if it had been bronze.

Lady Ba.s.sett drew back, and eyed her askant with amazement and terror.

"What is this you have dared to say?"

"Why, it is done every day."

"By people of your cla.s.s, perhaps. No; I don't believe it. Mary, I have been mistaken in you. I am afraid you are a vicious girl. Leave me, please. I can't bear the sight of you."

Mary went away, very red, and the tear in her eye.

In the evening Lady Ba.s.sett gave Mary Wells a month's warning, and Mary accepted it doggedly, and thought herself very cruelly used.

After this mistress and maid did not exchange an unnecessary word for many days.

This notice to leave was very bitter to Mary Wells, for she was in the very act of making a conquest. Young Drake, a very small farmer and tenant of Sir Charles, had fallen in love with her, and she liked him and had resolved he should marry her, with which view she was playing the tender but coy maiden very prettily. But Drake, though young and very much in love, was advised by his mother, and evidently resolved to go the old-fashioned way--keep company a year, and know the girl before offering the ring.

Just before her month was out a more serious trouble threatened Mary Wells.

Her low, artful amour with Richard Ba.s.sett had led to its natural results. By degrees she had gone further than she intended, and now the fatal consequences looked her in the face.

She found herself in an odious position; for her growing regard for young Drake, though not a violent attachment, was enough to set her more and more against Richard Ba.s.sett, and she was preparing an entire separation from the latter when the fatal truth dawned on her.

Then there was a temporary revulsion of feeling; she told her condition to Ba.s.sett, and implored him, with many tears, to aid her to disappear for a time and hide her misfortune, especially from her sister.

Mr. Ba.s.sett heard her, and then gave her an answer that made her blood run cold. "Why do you come to me?" said he. "Why don't you go to the right man--young Drake?"

He then told her he had had her watched, and she must not think to make a fool of him. She was as intimate with the young farmer as with him, and was in his company every day.

Mary Wells admitted that Drake was courting her, but said he was a civil, respectful young man, who desired to make her his wife. "You have lost me that," said she, bursting into tears; "and so, for G.o.d's sake, show yourself a man for once, and see me through my trouble."

The egotist disbelieved, or affected not to believe her, and said, "When there are two it is always the gentleman you girls deceive. But you can't make a fool of me, Mrs. Drake. Marry the farmer, and I'll give you a wedding present; that is all I can do for any other man's sweetheart. I have got my own family to provide for, and it is all I can contrive to make both ends meet."

He was cold and inflexible to her prayers. Then she tried threats. He laughed at them. Said he, "The time is gone by for that: if you wanted to sue me for breach of promise, you should have done it at once; not waited eighteen months and taken another sweetheart first. Come, come; you played your little game. You made me come here week after week and bleed a sovereign. A woman that loved a man would never have been so hard on him as you were on me. I grinned and bore it; but when you ask me to own another man's child, a man of your own sort that you are in love with--you hate me--that is a little too much: no, Mrs. Drake; if that is your game we will fight it out--before the public if you like."

And, having delivered this with a tone of harsh and loud defiance, he left her--left her forever. She sat down upon the cold ground and rocked herself. Despair was cold at her heart.

She sat in that forlorn state for more than an hour. Then she got up and went to her mistress's room and sat by the fire, for her limbs were cold as well as her heart.

She sat there, gazing at the fire and sighing heavily, till Lady Ba.s.sett came up to bed. She then went through her work like an automaton, and every now and then a deep sigh came from her breast.

Lady Ba.s.sett heard her sigh, and looked at her. Her face was altered; a sort of sullen misery was written on it. Lady Ba.s.sett was quick at reading faces, and this look alarmed her. "Mary," said she, kindly, "is there anything the matter?"

No reply.

"Are you unwell?"

"No."

"Are you in trouble?"

"Ay!" with a burst of tears.

Lady Ba.s.sett let her cry, thinking it would relieve her, and then spoke to her again with the languid pensiveness of a woman who has also her trouble. "You have been very attentive to Sir Charles, and a kind good servant to me, Mary."

"You are mocking me, my lady," said Mary, bitterly. "You wouldn't have turned me off for a word if I had been a good servant."

Lady Ba.s.sett colored high, and was silenced for a moment. At last she said, "I feel it must seem harsh to you. You don't know how wicked it was to tempt me. But it is not as if you had _done_ anything wrong. I do not feel bound to mention mere words: I shall give you an excellent character, Mary--indeed I _have._ I think I have got a good place for you. I shall know to-morrow, and when it is settled we will look over my wardrobe together."

This proposal implied a boxful of presents, and would have made Mary's dark eyes flash with delight at another time; but she was past all that now. She interrupted Lady Ba.s.sett with this strange speech: "You are very kind, my lady; will you lend me the key of your medicine chest?"

Lady Ba.s.sett looked surprised, but said, "Certainly, Mary," and held out the keys.

But, before Mary could take them, she considered a moment, and asked her what medicine she required.

"Only a little laudanum."

"No, Mary; not while you look like that, and refuse to tell me your trouble. I am your mistress, and must exert my authority for your good.

Tell me at once what is the matter."

"I'd bite my tongue off sooner."

"You are wrong, Mary. I am sure I should be your best friend. I feel much indebted to you for the attention and the affection you have shown me, and I am grieved to see you so despondent. Make a friend of me.

There--think it over, and talk to me again to-morrow."

Mary Wells took the true servant's view of Lady Ba.s.sett's kindness. She looked at it as a trap; not, indeed, set with malice prepense, but still a trap. She saw that Lady Ba.s.sett meant kindly at present; but, for all that, she was sure that if she told the truth, her mistress would turn against her, and say, "Oh! I had no idea your trouble arose out of your own imprudence. I can do nothing for a vicious girl."

She resolved therefore to say nothing, or else to tell some lie or other quite wide of the mark.

Deplorable as this young woman's situation was, the duplicity and coa.r.s.eness of mind which had brought her into it would have somewhat blunted the mental agony such a situation must inflict; but it was aggravated by a special terror; she knew that if she was found out she would lose the only sure friend she had in the world.