Chapter 4

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