SHARES LOOKING UP.
There were others who echoed her ladyship's words afterward, though they
echoed them privately, and with more caution than my lady felt necessary.
It is certain that Miss Octavia Bassett did not improve as time
progressed, and she had enlarged opportunities for studying the noble
example set before her by Slowbridge.
On his arrival in New York, Martin Bassett telegraphed to his daughter
and sister, per Atlantic cable, informing them that he might be detained
a couple of months, and bidding them to be of good cheer. The arrival of
the message in its official envelope so alarmed Miss Belinda, that she
was supported by Mary Anne while it was read to her by Octavia, who
received it without any surprise whatever. For some time after its
completion, Slowbridge had privately disbelieved in the Atlantic cable,
and, until this occasion, had certainly disbelieved in the existence of
people who received messages through it. In fact, on first finding that
she was the recipient of such a message, Miss Belinda had made immediate
preparations for fainting quietly away, being fully convinced that a
shipwreck had occurred, which had resulted in her brother's death, and
that his executors had chosen this delicate method of breaking the news.
"A message by Atlantic cable?" she had gasped. "Don't--don't read it, my
love. L-let some one else do that. Poor--poor child! Trust in Providence,
my love, and--and bear up. Ah, how I wish I had a stronger mind, and
could be of more service to you!"
"It's a message from father," said Octavia. "Nothing is the matter. He's
all right. He got in on Saturday."
"Ah!" panted Miss Belinda. "Are you _quite_ sure, my dear--are you quite
sure?"
"That's what he says. Listen."
"Got in Saturday. Piper met me. Shares looking up. May be kept here two
months. Will write. Keep up your spirits. MARTIN BASSETT."
"Thank Heaven!" sighed Miss Belinda. "Thank Heaven!"
"Why?" said Octavia.
"Why?" echoed Miss Belinda. "Ah, my dear, if you knew how terrified I
was! I felt sure that something had happened. A _cable_ message, my dear!
I never received a telegram in my life before, and to receive a _cable_
message was really a _shock_."
"Well, I don't see why," said Octavia. "It seems to me it is pretty much
like any other message."
Miss Belinda regarded her timidly.
"Does your papa _often_ send them?" she inquired. "Surely it must be
expensive."
"I don't suppose it's cheap," Octavia replied, "but it saves time and
worry. I should have had to wait twelve days for a letter."
"Very true," said Miss Belinda, "but"--
She broke off with rather a distressed shake of the head. Her simple
ideas of economy and quiet living were frequently upset in these times.
She had begun to regard her niece with a slight feeling of awe; and yet
Octavia had not been doing any thing at all remarkable in her own eyes,
and considered her life pretty dull.
If the elder Miss Bassett, her parents and grandparents, had not been so
thoroughly well known, and so universally respected; if their social
position had not been so firmly established, and their quiet lives not
quite so highly respectable,--there is an awful possibility that
Slowbridge might even have gone so far as not to ask Octavia out to tea
at all. But even Lady Theobald felt that it would not do to slight
Belinda Bassett's niece and guest. To omit the customary state teas
would have been to crush innocent Miss Belinda at a blow, and place
her--through the medium of this young lady, who alone deserved
condemnation--beyond the pale of all social law.
"It is only to be regretted," said her ladyship, "that Belinda Bassett
has not arranged things better. Relatives of such an order are certainly
to be deplored."
In secret Lucia felt much soft-hearted sympathy for both Miss Bassett and
her guest. She could not help wondering how Miss Belinda became
responsible for the calamity which had fallen upon her. It really did not
seem probable that she had been previously consulted as to the kind of
niece she desired, or that she had, in a distinct manner, evinced a
preference for a niece of this description.
"Perhaps, dear grandmamma," the girl ventured, "it is because Miss
Octavia Bassett is so young that"--
"May I ask," inquired Lady Theobald, in fell tones, "how old you are?"
"I was nineteen in--in December."
"Miss Octavia Bassett," said her ladyship, "was nineteen last October,
and it is now June. I have not yet found it necessary to apologize for
you on the score of youth."
But it was her ladyship who took the initiative, and set an evening for
entertaining Miss Belinda and her niece, in company with several other
ladies, with the best bohea, thin bread and butter, plum-cake, and
various other delicacies.
"What do they do at such places?" asked Octavia. "Half-past five is
pretty early."
"We spend some time at the tea-table, my dear," explained Miss Belinda.
"And afterward we--we converse. A few of us play whist. I do not. I feel
as if I were not clever enough, and I get flurried too easily by--by
differences of opinion."
"I should think it wasn't very exciting," said Octavia. "I don't fancy
I ever went to an entertainment where they did nothing but drink tea,
and talk."
"It is not our intention or desire to be exciting, my dear," Miss Belinda
replied with mild dignity. "And an improving conversation is frequently
most beneficial to the parties engaged in it."
"I'm afraid," Octavia observed, "that I never heard much improving
conversation."
She was really no fonder of masculine society than the generality of
girls; but she could not help wondering if there would be any young men
present, and if, indeed, there were any young men in Slowbridge who might
possibly be produced upon festive occasions, even though ordinarily kept
in the background. She had not heard Miss Belinda mention any masculine
name so far, but that of the curate of St. James's; and, when she had
seen him pass the house, she had not found his slim, black figure, and
faint, ecclesiastic whiskers, especially interesting.
It must be confessed that Miss Belinda suffered many pangs of anxiety in
looking forward to her young kinswoman's first appearance in society. A
tea at Lady Theobald's house constituted formal presentation to the
Slowbridge world. Each young lady within the pale of genteel society,
having arrived at years of discretion, on returning home from
boarding-school, was invited to tea at Oldclough Hall. During an entire
evening she was the subject of watchful criticism. Her deportment was
remarked, her accomplishments displayed, she performed her last new
"pieces" upon the piano, she was drawn into conversation by her hostess;
and upon the timid modesty of her replies, and the reverence of her
listening attitudes, depended her future social status. So it was very
natural indeed that Miss Belinda should be anxious.
"I would wear something rather quiet and--and simple, my dear Octavia,"
she said. "A white muslin perhaps, with blue ribbons."
"Would you?" answered Octavia. Then, after appearing to reflect upon the
matter a few seconds, "I've got one that would do, if it's warm enough
to wear it. I bought it in New York, but it came from Paris. I've never
worn it yet."
"It would be nicer than any thing else, my love," said Miss Belinda,
delighted to find her difficulty so easily disposed of. "Nothing is so
charming in the dress of a young girl as pure simplicity. Our Slowbridge
young ladies rarely wear any thing but white for evening. Miss Chickie
assured me, a few weeks ago, that she had made fifteen white-muslin
dresses, all after one simple design of her own."
"I shouldn't think that was particularly nice, myself," remarked Octavia
impartially. "I should be glad one of the fifteen didn't belong to me. I
should feel as if people might say, when I came into a room, 'Good
gracious, there's another!'"
"The first was made for Miss Lucia Gaston, who is Lady Theobald's niece,"
replied Miss Belinda mildly. "And there are few young ladies in
Slowbridge who would not emulate her example."
"Oh!" said Octavia, "I dare say she is very nice, and all that; but I
don't believe I should care to copy her dresses. I think I should draw
the line there."
But she said it without any ill-nature; and, sensitive as Miss Belinda
was upon the subject of her cherished ideals, she could not take offence.
When the eventful evening arrived, there was excitement in more than one
establishment upon High Street and the streets in its vicinity. The
stories of the diamonds, the gold-diggers, and the silver-mines, had been
added to, and embellished, in the most ornate and startling manner. It
was well known that only Lady Theobald's fine appreciation of Miss
Belinda Bassett's feelings had induced her to extend her hospitalities to
that lady's niece.
"I would prefer, my dear," said more than one discreet matron to her
daughter, as they attired themselves,--"I would much prefer that you
would remain near me during the earlier part of the evening, before we
know how this young lady may turn out. Let your manner toward her be
kind, but not familiar. It is well to be upon the safe side."
What precise line of conduct it was generally anticipated that this
gold-digging and silver-mining young person would adopt, it would be
difficult to say: it is sufficient that the general sentiments regarding
her were of a distrustful, if not timorous, nature.
To Miss Bassett, who felt all this in the very air she breathed, the
girl's innocence of the condition of affairs was even a little touching.
With all her splendor, she was not at all hard to please, and had quite
awakened to an interest in the impending social event. She seemed in good
spirits, and talked more than was her custom, giving Miss Belinda graphic
descriptions of various festal gatherings she had attended in New York,
when she seemed to have been very gay indeed, and to have worn very
beautiful dresses, and also to have had rather more than her share of
partners. The phrases she used, and the dances she described, were all
strange to Miss Belinda, and tended to reducing her to a bewildered
condition, in which she felt much timid amazement at the intrepidity of
the New-York young ladies, and no slight suspicion of the "German"--as a
theatrical kind of dance, involving extraordinary figures, and an
extraordinary amount of attention from partners of the stronger sex.
It must be admitted, however, that by this time, notwithstanding the
various shocks she had received, Miss Belinda had begun to discover in
her young guest divers good qualities which appealed to her
affectionate and susceptible old heart. In the first place, the girl
had no small affectations: indeed, if she had been less unaffected she
might have been less subject to severe comment. She was good-natured,
and generous to extravagance. Her manner toward Mary Anne never ceased
to arouse Miss Belinda to interest. There was not any condescension
whatever in it, and yet it could not be called a vulgarly familiar
manner: it was rather an astonishingly simple manner, somehow
suggestive of a subtile recognition of Mary Anne's youth, and ill-luck
in not having before her more lively prospects. She gave Mary Anne
presents in the shape of articles of clothing at which Slowbridge
would have exclaimed in horror if the recipient had dared to wear them;
but, when Miss Belinda expressed her regret at these indiscretions,
Octavia was quite willing to rectify her mistakes.
"Ah, well!" she said, "I can give her some money, and she can buy some
things for herself." Which she proceeded to do; and when, under her
mistress's direction, Mary Anne purchased a stout brown merino, she took
quite an interest in her struggles at making it.
"I wouldn't make it so short in the waist and so full in the skirt, if I
were you," she said. "There's no reason why it shouldn't fit, you know,"
thereby winning the house-maiden's undying adoration, and adding much to
the shapeliness of the garment.
"I am sure she has a good heart," Miss Belinda said to herself, as the
days went by. "She is like Martin in that. I dare say she finds me very
ignorant and silly. I often see in her face that she is unable to
understand my feeling about things; but she never seems to laugh at me,
nor think of me unkindly. And she is very, very pretty, though perhaps I
ought not to think of that at all."