“And so it was for myself, you silly thing. Are you not myself? and the part of myself I love the best?” And her supple wrist was round his neck in a moment. They rode home together, like lovers, and comforted each other. Richard Bassett, with Wheeler's assistance, had borrowed money on Highmore to buy “Splatchett's”; he now borrowed money on “Splatchett's,” and bought Dean's Wood--a wood, with patches of grass, that lay on the east of Sir Charles's boundary. He gave seventeen hundred pounds for it, and sold two thousand pounds' worth of timber off it the first year. This sounds incredible; but, owing to the custom of felling only ripe trees, landed proprietors had no sure clew to the value of all the timber on an acre. Richard Bassett had found this out, and bought Dean's Wood upon the above terms--_i.e.,_ the vender gave him the soil and three hundred pounds gratis. He grubbed the roots and sold them for fuel, and planted larches to catch the overflow of Sir Charles's game. The grass grew beautifully, now the trees were down, and he let it for pasture. He then, still under Wheeler's advice, came out into the world again, improved his dress, and called on several county families, with a view to marrying money. Now in the country they do not despise a poor gentleman of good lineage, and Bassett was one of the oldest names in the county; so every door was open to him; and, indeed, his late hermit life had stimulated some curiosity. This he soon turned to sympathy, by telling them that he was proud but poor. Robbed of the vast estates that belonged to him by birth, he had been unwilling to take a lower position. However, Heaven had prospered him; the wrongful heir was childless; he was the heir at law, and felt he owed it to the estate, which must return to his line, to assume a little more public importance than he had done. Wherever he was received he was sure to enlarge upon his wrongs; and he was believed; for he was notoriously the direct heir to Bassett and Huntercombe, but the family arrangement by which his father had been bought out was known only to a few. He readily obtained sympathy, and many persons were disgusted at Sir Charles's illiberality in not making him some compensation. To use the homely expression of Govett, a small proprietor, the baronet might as well have given him back one pig out of his own farrow--_i.e.,_ one of the many farms comprised in that large estate. Sir Charles learned that Richard was undermining him in the county, but was too proud to interfere; he told Lady Bassett he should say nothing until some _gentleman_ should indorse Mr. Bassett's falsehoods. One day Sir Charles and Lady Bassett were invited to dine and sleep at Mr. Hardwicke's, distance fifteen miles; they went, and found Richard Bassett dining there, by Mrs. Hardwicke's invitation, who was one of those ninnies that fling guests together with no discrimination.