Mrs. Bassett cast a bewildered look at her husband and daughter, then opened the letter quietly; read it quietly; and, having read it, took out her handkerchief and began to cry quietly.
Ruperta cried, “Oh, mamma!” and in a moment had one long arm round her mother's neck, while the other hand seized the letter, and she read it aloud, cheek to cheek; but, before she got to an end, her mother's tears infected her, and she must whimper too.
“Here are a couple of geese,” said Richard Bassett. “Can't you write a civil reply to a civil letter without sniveling? I'll answer the letter for you.”
“No!” said Mrs. Bassett.
Richard was amazed: Ruperta ditto.
The little woman had never dealt in “Noes,” least of all to her husband; and besides this was such a plump “No.” It came out of her mouth like a marble.
I think the sound surprised even herself a little, for she proceeded to justify it at once. “I have been a better wife than a Christian this many years. But there's a limit. And, Richard, I should never have married you if you had told me we were to be at war all our lives with our next neighbor, that everybody respects. To live in the country, and not speak to our only neighbor, that is a life I never would have left my father's house for. Not that I complain: if you have been bitter to them, you have always been good and kind to me; and I hope I have done my best to deserve it; but when a sick lady, and perhaps dying, holds out her hand to me—-write her one of your cold-blooded letters! That I WON'T. Reply? my reply will be just putting on my bonnet and going to her this afternoon. It is Passion-week, too; and that's not a week to play the heathen. Poor lady! I've seen in her sweet eyes this many years that she would gladly be friends with me; and she never passed me close but she bowed to me, in church or out, even when we were at daggers drawn. She is a lady, a real lady, every inch. But it is not that altogether. No, if a sick woman called me to her bedside this week, I'd go, whether she wrote from Huntercombe Hall or the poorest house in the place; else how could I hope my Saviour would come to my bedside at my last hour?”
This honest burst, from a meek lady who never talked nonsense, to be sure, but seldom went into eloquence, staggered Richard Bassett, and enraptured Ruperta so, that she flung both arms round her mother's neck, and cried, “Oh, mamma! I always thought you were the best woman in England, and now I know it.”
“Well, well, well,” said Richard, kindly enough; then to Ruperta, “Did I ever say she was not the best woman in England? So you need not set up your throats neck and neck at me, like two geese at a fox. Unfortunately, she is the simplest woman in England, as well as the best, and she is going to visit the cunningest. That Lady Bassett will turn our mother inside out in no time. I wish you would go with her; you are a shrewd girl.”
“My daughter will not go till she is asked,” said Mrs. Bassett, firmly.