"I am, madam, yours obediently,
"RICHARD BASSETT."
"MR. BASSETT--I retire from a correspondence which appears to be
useless, and might, if prolonged, draw some bitter remark from me, as
it has from you.
"After the trial, which you court and I deprecate, you will perhaps
review my letters with a more friendly eye.
"I am, yours obediently,
"BELLA BASSETT."
In this fencing-match between a lawyer and a lady each gained an
advantage. The lawyer's letters, as might have been expected, were the
best adapted to be read to a jury; but the lady, subtler in her way,
obtained, at a small sacrifice, what she wanted, and that without
raising the slightest suspicion of her true motive in the
correspondence.
She announced her success to Mr. Oldfield; but, in the midst of it, she
quaked with terror at the thought of what Sir Charles would say to her
for writing to Mr. Bassett at all.
She now, with the changeableness of her sex, hoped and prayed Mr.
Bassett would admit the anonymous letter, and so all her subtlety and
pains prove superfluous.
Quaking secretly, but with a lovely face and serene front, she took her
place at the assizes, before the judge, and got as near him as she
could.
The court was crowded, and many ladies present.
_Bassett v.
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