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 having a mind like running water, she was soon seated on a garden chair, singing over her nursling like a mavis: she had delivered him to Millar while she went to speak her mind to her old lover. As for Richard Bassett, he was theory-bitten, and so turned every thing one way. To be sure, as long as the woman's glaring eyes and face distorted by passion were before him, he interpreted her words simply; but when he thought the matter over he said to himself, “The evil-eye! That is all bosh; the girl is in Lady Bassett's secrets; and I am not to see young master: some day I shall know the reason why.” Sir Charles Bassett now belonged to the tribe of clucking cocks quite as much as his cousin had ever done; only Sir Charles had the good taste to confine his clucks to his own first-floor. Here, to be sure, he richly indemnified himself for his self-denial abroad. He sat for hours at a time watching the boy on the ground at his knee, or in his nurse's arms. And while he watched the infant with undisguised delight, Lady Bassett would watch _him_ with a sort of furtive and timid complacency. Yet at times she suffered from twinges of jealousy--a new complaint with her.