Her intelligence saw at once that Lady Bassett was pining to death, and
a weak-minded nurse would be fatal: she was all smiles and brightness,
and neglected no means to encourage the patient.
With this view, she promised to plight her faith to Compton the moment
Lady Bassett should be restored to health; and so, with hopes and
smiles, and the novelty of a daughter's love, she fought with death for
Lady Bassett, and at last she won the desperate battle.
This did Richard Bassett's daughter for her father's late enemy.
The grateful husband wrote to Bassett, and now acknowledged _his_
obligation.
A civil, mock-modest reply from Richard Bassett.
From this things went on step by step, till at last Compton and
Ruperta, at eighteen years of age, were formally betrothed.
Thus the children's love wore out the father's hate.
That love, so troubled at the outset, left, by degrees, the region of
romance, and rippled smoothly through green, flowery meadows.
Ruperta showed her lover one more phase of girlhood; she, who had been
a precocious and forward child, and then a shy and silent girl, came
out now a bright and witty young woman, full of vivacity, modesty, and
sensibility. Time cured Compton of his one defect. Ruperta stopped
growing at fifteen, but Compton went slowly on; caught her at
seventeen, and at nineteen had passed her by a head.
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