Horsemen have been known to stop in
the road to hear her sing through an open window of Huntercombe, two
hundred yards off.
Old Mr. Meyrick, a farmer well-to-do, fascinated by Mary Gosport's
singing, asked her to be his housekeeper when she should have done
nursing her charge.
She laughed in his face.
A fanatic who was staying with Sir Charles Bassett offered her three
years' education in Do, Ra, Mi, Fa, preparatory to singing at the
opera.
Declined without thanks.
Mr. Drake, after hovering shyly, at last found courage to reproach her
for deserting him and marrying a sailor.
"Teach you not to shilly-shally," said she. "Beauty won't go a-begging.
Mind you look sharper next time."
This dialogue, being held in the kitchen, gave the women some amusement
at the young farmer's expense.
One day Mr. Richard Bassett, from motives of pure affection no doubt,
not curiosity, desired mightily to inspect Mr. Bassett, aged eight
months and two days.
So, in his usual wily way, he wrote to Mrs. Gosport, asking her, for
old acquaintance' sake, to meet him in the meadow at the end of the
lawn. This meadow belonged to Sir Charles, but Richard Bassett had a
right of way through it, and could step into it by a postern, as Mary
could by an iron gate.
He asked her to come at eleven o'clock, because at that hour he
observed she walked on the lawn with her charge.
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