A Fair Barbarian | Page 3

Belinda.

"Where must he put them?" she asked.
It did not seem to have occurred to her once that her identity might be
doubted, and some slight obstacles arise before her.
"I am afraid," faltered Miss Belinda, "that five of them will have to be
put in the attic."
And in fifteen minutes five of them were put into the attic, and the
sixth--the biggest of all--stood in the trim little spare chamber, and
pretty Miss Octavia had sunk into a puffy little chintz-covered
easy-chair, while her newly found relative stood before her, making the
most laudable efforts to recover her equilibrium, and not to feel as if
her head were spinning round and round.


CHAPTER II.
"AN INVESTMENT, ANYWAY."
The natural result of these efforts was, that Miss Belinda was moved to
shed a few tears.
"I hope you will excuse my being too startled to say I was glad to see
you," she said. "I have not seen my brother for thirty years, and I was
very fond of him."
"He said you were," answered Octavia; "and he was very fond of you
too. He didn't write to you, because he made up his mind not to let you
hear from him until he was a rich man; and then he thought he would
wait until he could come home, and surprise you. He was awfully
disappointed when he had to go back without seeing you."
"Poor, dear Martin!" wept Miss Belinda gently. "Such a journey!"
Octavia opened her charming eyes in surprise.

"Oh, he'll come back again!" she said. "And he doesn't mind the
journey. The journey is nothing, you know."
"Nothing!" echoed Miss Belinda. "A voyage across the Atlantic
nothing? When one thinks of the danger, my dear"--
Octavia's eyes opened a shade wider.
"We have made the trip to the States, across the Isthmus, twelve times,
and that takes a month," she remarked. "So we don't think ten days
much."
"Twelve times!" said Miss Belinda, quite appalled. "Dear, dear, dear!"
And for some moments she could do nothing but look at her young
relative in doubtful wonder, shaking her head with actual sadness.
But she finally recovered herself, with a little start.
"What am I thinking of," she exclaimed remorsefully, "to let you sit
here in this way? Pray excuse me, my dear. You see I am so upset."
She left her chair in a great hurry, and proceeded to embrace her young
guest tenderly, though with a little timorousness. The young lady
submitted to the caress with much composure.
"Did I upset you?" she inquired calmly.
The fact was, that she could not see why the simple advent of a relative
from Nevada should seem to have the effect of an earthquake, and
result in tremor, confusion, and tears. It was true, she herself had shed a
tear or so, but then her troubles had been accumulating for several days;
and she had not felt confused yet.
When Miss Belinda went down-stairs to superintend Mary Anne in the
tea-making, and left her guest alone, that young person glanced about
her with a rather dubious expression.
"It is a queer, nice little place," she said. "But I don't wonder that pa

emigrated, if they always get into such a flurry about little things. I
might have been a ghost."
Then she proceeded to unlock the big trunk, and attire herself.
Down-stairs, Miss Belinda was wavering between the kitchen and the
parlor, in a kindly flutter.
"Toast some muffins, Mary Anne, and bring in the cold roast fowl," she
said. "And I will put out some strawberry-jam, and some of the
preserved ginger. Dear me! Just to think how fond of preserved ginger
poor Martin was, and how little of it he was allowed to eat! There really
seems a special Providence in my having such a nice stock of it in the
house when his daughter comes home."
In the course of half an hour every thing was in readiness; and then
Mary Anne, who had been sent up-stairs to announce the fact, came
down in a most remarkable state of delighted agitation, suppressed
ecstasy and amazement exclaiming aloud in every feature.
"She's dressed, mum," she announced, "an' 'll be down immediate," and
retired to a shadowy corner of the kitchen passage, that she might lie in
wait unobserved.
Miss Belinda, sitting behind the tea-service, heard a soft, flowing,
silken rustle sweeping down the staircase, and across the hall, and then
her niece entered.
"Don't you think I've dressed pretty quick?" she said, and swept across
the little parlor, and sat down in her place, with the calmest and most
unconscious air in the world.
There was in Slowbridge but one dressmaking establishment. The head
of the establishment--Miss Letitia Chickie--designed the costumes of
every woman in