A Fair Barbarian | Page 6

it must be confessed that she looked a little bored, as she leaned back in her chair, and glanced down at the train of her dress. It seemed to her that her simplest statement or remark created a sensation.
Having at last risen from the tea-table, she wandered to the window, and stood there, looking out at Miss Belinda's flower-garden. It was quite a pretty flower-garden, and a good-sized one considering the dimensions of the house. There were an oval grass-plot, divers gravel paths, heart and diamond shaped beds aglow with brilliant annuals, a great many rose-bushes, several laburnums and lilacs, and a trim hedge of holly surrounding it.
"I think I should like to go out and walk around there," remarked Octavia, smothering a little yawn behind her hand. "Suppose we go--if you don't care."
"Certainly, my dear," assented Miss Belinda. "But perhaps," with a delicately dubious glance at her attire, "you would like to make some little alteration in your dress--to put something a little--dark over it."
Octavia glanced down also.
"Oh, no!" she replied: "it will do well enough. I will throw a scarf over my head, though; not because I need it," unblushingly, "but because I have a lace one that is very becoming."
She went up to her room for the article in question, and in three minutes was down again. When she first caught sight of her, Miss Belinda found herself obliged to clear her throat quite suddenly. What Slowbridge would think of seeing such a toilet in her front garden, upon an ordinary occasion, she could not imagine. The scarf truly was becoming. It was a long affair of rich white lace, and was thrown over the girl's head, wound around her throat, and the ends tossed over her shoulders, with the most picturesque air of carelessness in the world.
"You look quite like a bride, my dear Octavia," said Miss Belinda. "We are scarcely used to such things in Slowbridge."
But Octavia only laughed a little.
"I am going to get some pink roses, and fasten the ends with them, when we get into the garden," she said.
She stopped for this purpose at the first rose-bush they reached. She gathered half a dozen slender-stemmed, heavy-headed buds, and, having fastened the lace with some, was carelessly placing the rest at her waist, when Miss Belinda started violently.


CHAPTER IV.
LADY THEOBALD.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed nervously, "there is Lady Theobald."
Lady Theobald, having been making calls of state, was returning home rather later than usual, when, in driving up High Street, her eye fell upon Miss Bassett's garden. She put up her eyeglasses, and gazed through them severely; then she issued a mandate to her coachman.
"Dobson," she said, "drive more slowly."
She could not believe the evidence of her own eyeglasses. In Miss Bassett's garden she saw a tall girl, "dressed," as she put it, "like an actress," her delicate dress trailing upon the grass, a white lace scarf about her head and shoulders, roses in that scarf, roses at her waist.
"Good heavens!" she exclaimed: "is Belinda Bassett giving a party, without so much as mentioning it to _me_?"
Then she issued another mandate.
"Dobson," she said, "drive faster, and drive me to Miss Bassett's."
Miss Belinda came out to the gate to meet her, quaking inwardly. Octavia simply turned slightly where she stood, and looked at her ladyship, without any pretence of concealing her curiosity.
Lady Theobald bent forward in her landau.
"Belinda," she said, "how do you do? I did not know you intended to introduce garden-parties into Slowbridge."
"Dear Lady Theobald"--began Miss Belinda.
"Who is that young person?" demanded her ladyship.
"She is poor dear Martin's daughter," answered Miss Belinda. "She arrived to-day--from Nevada, where--where it appears Martin has been very fortunate, and owns a great many silver-mines"--
"A 'great many' silver-mines!" cried Lady Theobald. "Are you mad, Belinda Bassett? I am ashamed of you. At your time of life too!"
Miss Belinda almost shed tears.
"She said 'some silver-mines,' I am sure," she faltered; "for I remember how astonished and bewildered I was. The fact is, that she is such a very singular girl, and has told me so many wonderful things, in the strangest, cool way, that I am quite uncertain of myself. Murderers, and gold-diggers, and silver-mines, and camps full of men without women, making presents of gold girdles and dog-collars, and ear-rings that drag your ears down. It is enough to upset any one."
"I should think so," responded her ladyship. "Open the carriage-door, Belinda, and let me get out."
She felt that this matter must be inquired into at once, and not allowed to go too far. She had ruled Slowbridge too long to allow such innovations to remain uninvestigated. She would not be likely to be "upset," at least. She descended from her landau, with her most rigorous air. Her stout, rich black _moire-antique_ gown rustled severely; the yellow ostrich feather