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.

Bassett_ was called in a loud voice; there was a hum of excitement, then a silence of expectation, and the plaintiff's counsel rose to address the jury..