for a while; but people would call it Lodginville, and nobody liked it."
"I trust you never lived there," said Miss Belinda. "I beg your pardon for being so horrified, but I really could not refrain from starting when you spoke; and I cannot help hoping you never lived there."
"I live there now, when I am at home," Octavia replied. "The mines are there; and father has built a house, and had the furniture brought on from New York."
Miss Belinda tried not to shudder, but almost failed.
"Won't you take another muffin, my love?" she said, with a sigh. "Do take another muffin."
"No, thank you," answered Octavia; and 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
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