But malice so perverse is apt to recoil on itself; and women, in particular, should not undertake a long and subtle revenge of this sort; since the strongest have their hours of weakness, and are surprised into things they never intended. The subsequent history of Mary Wells will exemplify this. Meantime, however, meek little Mrs. Bassett was no match for the beauty and low cunning of her rival. Yet a time came when she defended herself unconsciously. She did something that made her husband most solicitous for her welfare and happiness. He began to watch her health with maternal care, to shield her from draughts, to take care of her diet, to indulge her in all her whims instead of snubbing her, and to pet her, till she was the happiest wife in England for a time. She deserved this at his hands, for she assisted him there where his heart was fixed; she aided his hobby; did more for it than any other creature in England could. To return to Huntercombe Hall: the loving couple that owned it were no longer happy. The hope of offspring was now deserting them, and the disappointment was cruel. They suffered deeply, with this difference--that Lady Bassett pined and Sir Charles Bassett fretted. The woman's grief was more pure and profound than the man's. If there had been no Richard Bassett in the world, still her bosom would have yearned and pined, and the great cry of Nature, “Give me children or I die,” would have been in her heart, though it would never have risen to her lips. Sir Charles had, of course, less of this profound instinct than his wife, but he had it too; only in him the feeling was adulterated and at the same time imbittered by one less simple and noble. An enemy sat at his gate. That enemy, whose enduring malice had at last begotten equal hostility in the childless baronet, was now married, and would probably have heirs; and, if so, that hateful brood--the spawn of an anonymous letter-writer--would surely inherit Bassett and Huntercombe, succeeding to Sir Charles Bassett, deceased without issue. This chafed the childless man, and gradually undermined a temper habitually sweet, though subject, as we have seen, to violent ebullitions where the provocation was intolerable. Sir Charles, then, smarting under his wound, spoke now and then rather unkindly to the wife he loved so devotedly; that is to say, his manner sometimes implied that he blamed her for their joint calamity. Lady Bassett submitted to these stings in silence. They were rare, and speedily followed by touching regrets; and even had it not been so she would have borne them with resignation; for this motherless wife loved her husband with all a wife's devotion and a mother's unselfish patience. Let this be remembered to her credit. It is the truth, and she may need it.