Wheeler thought it rather hard God Almighty should be blamed because Dick Bassett had taken eight years to find out his wife's merit; but he forbore to say so. He said kindly that he would stay.
Now while they sat in trying suspense the church-bells struck up a merry peal.
Bassett started violently and his eyes gave a strange glare. “That's the other!” said he; for he had heard about Lady Bassett by this time.
Then he turned pale. “They ring for him: then they are sure to toll for me.”
This foreboding was natural enough in a man so blinded by egotism as to fancy that all creation, and the Creator himself, must take a side in Bassett v. Bassett.
Nevertheless, events did not justify that foreboding. The bells had scarcely done ringing for the happy event at Huntercombe, when joyful feet were heard running on the stairs; joyful voices clashed together in the passage, and in came a female servant with joyful tidings. Mrs. Bassett was safe, and the child in the world. “The loveliest little girl you ever saw!”
“A girl!” cried Richard Bassett with contemptuous amazement. Even his melancholy forebodings had not gone that length. “And what have they got at Huntercombe?”
“Oh, it is a boy, sir, there.”
“Of course.”
The ringers heard, and sent one of their number to ask him if they should ring.