"_
"Poor man! Richard, death reconciles enemies. Surely you can forgive
him now."
"I mean to try."
Richard Bassett seemed now to have imbibed the spirit of quicksilver.
His occupations were not actually enlarged, yet, somehow or other, he
seemed full of business. He was all complacent bustle about nothing. He
left off inveighing against Sir Charles. And, indeed, if you are one of
those weak spirits to whom censure is intolerable, there is a cheap and
easy way to moderate the rancor of detraction--you have only to die.
Let me comfort genius in particular with this little recipe.
Why, on one occasion, Bassett actually snubbed Wheeler for a mere
allusion. That worthy just happened to remark, "No more felling of
timber on Bassett Manor for a while."
"For shame!" said Richard. "The man had his faults, but he had his good
qualities too: a high-spirited gentleman, beloved by his friends and
respected by all the county. His successor will find it hard to
reconcile the county to his loss."
Wheeler stared, and then grinned satirically.
This eulogy was never repeated, for Sir Charles proved ungrateful--he
omitted to die, after all.
Attended by first-rate physicians, tenderly nursed and watched by Lady
Bassett and Mary Wells, he got better by degrees; and every stage of
his slow but hopeful progress was communicated to the servants and the
village, and to the ladies and gentlemen who rode up to the door every
day and left their cards of inquiry.
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