A Fair Barbarian | Page 9

is a wampum?" inquired one of her admiring audience.
"A tent," replied Miss Phipps, with some impatience. "I should think
any goose would know that. It is a kind of tent hung with scalps
and--and--moccasins, and--lariats--and things of that sort."
"I don't believe that is the right name for it," put in Miss Smith, who
was a pert member of the third class.
"Ah!" commented Miss Phipps, "that was Miss Smith who spoke, of

course. We may always expect information from Miss Smith. I trust
that I may be allowed to say that I think I have a brother"--
"He doesn't know much about it, if he calls a wigwam a wampum,"
interposed Miss Smith, with still greater pertness. "I have a brother who
knows better than that, if I am only in the third class." For a moment
Miss Phipps appeared to be meditating. Perhaps she was a trifle
discomfited; but she recovered herself after a brief pause, and returned
to the charge.
"Well," she remarked, "perhaps it is a wigwam. Who cares if it is? And
at any rate, whatever it is, I haven't the slightest doubt that she lives in
one."
This comparatively tame version was, however, entirely discarded
when the diamonds and silver-mines began to figure more largely in
the reports. Certainly, pretty, overdressed, jewel-bedecked Octavia
gave Slowbridge abundant cause for excitement.
After leaving her, Lady Theobald drove home to Oldclough Hall, rather
out of humor. She had been rather out of humor for some time, having
never quite recovered from her anger at the daring of that cheerful
builder of mills, Mr. John Burmistone. Mr. Burmistone had been one
innovation, and Octavia Bassett was another. She had not been able to
manage Mr. Burmistone, and she was not at all sure that she had
managed Octavia Bassett.
She entered the dining-room with an ominous frown on her forehead.
At the end of the table, opposite her own seat, was a vacant chair, and
her frown deepened when she saw it.
"Where is Miss Gaston?" she demanded of the servant.
Before the man had time to reply, the door opened, and a girl came in
hurriedly, with a somewhat frightened air.
"I beg pardon, grandmamma dear," she said, going to her seat quickly.

"I did not know you had come home."
"We have a dinner-hour," announced her ladyship, "and I do not
disregard it."
"I am very sorry," faltered the culprit.
"That is enough, Lucia," interrupted Lady Theobald; and Lucia dropped
her eyes, and began to eat her soup with nervous haste. In fact, she was
glad to escape so easily.
She was a very pretty creature, with brown eyes, a soft white skin, and
a slight figure with a reed-like grace. A great quantity of brown hair
was twisted into an ugly coil on the top of her delicate little head; and
she wore an ugly muslin gown of Miss Chickie's make. For some time
the meal progressed in dead silence; but at length Lucia ventured to
raise her eyes.
"I have been walking in Slowbridge, grandmamma," she said, "and I
met Mr. Burmistone, who told me that Miss Bassett has a visitor--a
young lady from America."
Lady Theobald laid her knife and fork down deliberately.
"Mr. Burmistone?" she said. "Did I understand you to say that you
stopped on the roadside to converse with Mr. Burmistone?"
Lucia colored up to her delicate eyebrows and above them.
"I was trying to reach a flower growing on the bank," she said, "and he
was so kind as to stop to get it for me. I did not know he was near at
first. And then he inquired how you were--and told me he had just
heard about the young lady."
"Naturally!" remarked her ladyship sardonically. "It is as I anticipated
it would be. We shall find Mr. Burmistone at our elbows upon all
occasions. And he will not allow himself to be easily driven away. He
is as determined as persons of his class usually are."

"O grandmamma!" protested Lucia, with innocent fervor. "I really do
not think he is--like that at all. I could not help thinking he was very
gentlemanly and kind. He is so much interested in your school, and so
anxious that it should prosper."
"May I ask," inquired Lady Theobald, "how long a time this generous
expression of his sentiments occupied? Was this the reason of your
forgetting the dinner-hour?"
"We did not"--said Lucia guiltily: "it did not take many minutes. I--I do
not think that made me late."
Lady Theobald dismissed this paltry excuse with one remark,--a remark
made in the deep tones referred to once before.
"I should scarcely have expected," she observed, "that a granddaughter
of mine would have spent half an hour conversing on the public road
with the proprietor