bending a little lower over her embroidery.

"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