Heliers when he came back to her after
the next voyage, and Fox and his good lady got wind of it, of course; but
'tis generally allowed they didn't send her no wedding present.
Somebody did, however, for when William Bassett heard how things had
fallen out, his romantical character came to his aid, and, such are the
vagaries of human nature, that he sent Mrs. Masters a five-pound note.
"Just to show you the sort of man you might have took, my dear," he wrote
to her.
No. VI
MOTHER'S MISFORTUNE
I shall always say I did ought to have married Gregory Sweet when my
husband dropped, and nobody can accuse me of not doing my bestest to that
end. In a womanly way, knowing the man had me in his eye from the funeral
onwards, and before for that matter, I endeavoured to make it so easy for
him as I could without loss of self-respect; and he can hear me out, and
if he don't the neighbours will.
But there it was. Gregory suffered from defects of character, too prone to
show themselves in a bachelor man after the half century he turned. He
pushed caution to such extremes that you can only call ungentlemanly where
a nice woman's concerned, and I never shall know to my dying day what kept
him off me. A man of good qualities too, but a proper slave to the habit
of caution, and though I'd be the last to undervalue the virtue which
never was wanted more than now, yet, when the coast lies clear and the
sun's shining and the goal in sight, and that goal me, 'twas a depressing
thing for the man to hold back without any sane reason for so doing.
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