“Don't know,” said Richard Bassett, with such a sudden brevity and asperity that Miss Bruce looked up and opened her lovely eyes. Mr. Richard Bassett replied to this mute inquiry, “We don't speak.” Then, after a pause, “He has robbed me of my inheritance.” “Oh, Mr. Bassett!” “Yes, Miss Bruce, the Bassett and Huntercombe estates were mine by right of birth. My father was the eldest son, and they were entailed on him. But Sir Charles's father persuaded my old, doting grandfather to cut off the entail, and settle the estates on him and his heirs; and so they robbed me of every acre they could. Luckily my little estate of Highmore was settled on my mother and her issue too tight for the villains to undo.” These harsh expressions, applied to his own kin, and the abruptness and heat they were uttered with, surprised and repelled his gentle listener. She shrank a little away from him. He observed it. She replied not to his words, but to her own thought: “But, after all, it does seem hard.” She added, with a little fervor, “But it wasn't poor Sir Charles's doing, after all.” “He is content to reap the benefit,” said Richard Bassett, sternly. Then, finding he was making a sorry impression, he tried to get away from the subject. I say tried, for till a man can double like a hare he will never get away from his hobby. “Excuse me,” said he; “I ought never to speak about it. Let us talk of something else. You cannot enter into my feelings; it makes my blood boil. Oh, Miss Bruce! you can't conceive what a disinherited man feels--and I live at the very door: his old trees, that ought to be mine, fling their shadows over my little flower beds; the sixty chimneys of Huntercombe Hall look down on my cottage; his acres of lawn run up to my little garden, and nothing but a ha-ha between us.” “It _is_ hard,” said Miss Bruce, composedly; not that she entered into a hardship of this vulgar sort, but it was her nature to soothe and please people. “Hard!” cried Richard Bassett, encouraged by even this faint sympathy; “it would be unendurable but for one thing--I shall have my own some day.” “I am glad of that,” said the lady; “but how?” “By outliving the wrongful heir.” Miss Bruce turned pale. She had little experience of men's passions. “Oh, Mr. Bassett!” said she--and there was something pure and holy in the look of sorrow and alarm she cast on the presumptuous speaker--“pray do not cherish such thoughts. They will do you harm. And remember life and death are not in our hands. Besides--” “Well?”' “Sir Charles might--” “Well?” “Might he not--marry--and have children?” This with more hesitation and a deeper blush than appeared absolutely necessary.