Chapter 3

L'ARGENTVILLE.

Miss Belinda sat, looking at her niece, with a sense of being at once
stunned and fascinated. To see a creature so young, so pretty, so
luxuriously splendid, and at the same time so simply and completely at
ease with herself and her surroundings, was a revelation quite beyond her
comprehension. The best-bred and nicest girls Slowbridge could produce
were apt to look a trifle conscious and timid when they found themselves
attired in the white muslin and floral decorations; but this slender
creature sat in her gorgeous attire, her train flowing over the modest
carpet, her rings flashing, her ear-pendants twinkling, apparently
entirely oblivious of, or indifferent to, the fact that all her
belongings were sufficiently out of place to be startling beyond measure.

Her chief characteristic, however, seemed to be her excessive frankness.
She did not hesitate at all to make the most remarkable statements
concerning her own and her father's past career. She made them, too, as
if there was nothing unusual about them. Twice, in her childhood, a
luckless speculation had left her father penniless; and once he had taken
her to a Californian gold-diggers' camp, where she had been the only
female member of the somewhat reckless community.

"But they were pretty good-natured, and made a pet of me," she said;
"and we did not stay very long. Father had a stroke of luck, and we
went away. I was sorry when we had to go, and so were the men. They made
me a present of a set of jewelry made out of the gold they had got
themselves. There is a breastpin like a breastplate, and a necklace like
a dog-collar: the bracelets tire my arms, and the ear-rings pull my ears;
but I wear them sometimes--gold girdle and all."

"Did I," inquired Miss Belinda timidly, "did I understand you to say, my
dear, that your father's business was in some way connected with
silver-mining?"

"It _is_ silver-mining," was the response. "He owns some mines, you
know"--

"Owns?" said Miss Belinda, much fluttered; "owns some silver-mines? He
must be a very rich man,--a very rich man. I declare, it quite takes my
breath away."

"Oh! he is rich," said Octavia; "awfully rich sometimes. And then again
he isn't. Shares go up, you know; and then they go down, and you don't
seem to have any thing. But father generally comes out right, because he
is lucky, and knows how to manage."

"But--but how uncertain!" gasped Miss Belinda: "I should be perfectly
miserable. Poor, dear Mar"--

"Oh, no, you wouldn't!" said Octavia: "you'd get used to it, and wouldn't
mind much, particularly if you