in question. She turned to the window again.

"Well, anyway," she said, "I think it was pretty cool in her to order me
to take off my diamonds, and save them until I was married. How does she
know whether I mean to be married, or not? I don't know that I care
about it."




CHAPTER V.

LUCIA.


In this manner Slowbridge received the shock which shook it to
its foundations, and it was a shock from which it did not recover for
some time. Before ten o'clock the next morning, everybody knew of the
arrival of Martin Bassett's daughter.

The very boarding-school (Miss Pilcher's select seminary for young
ladies, "combining the comforts of a home," as the circular said,
"with all the advantages of genteel education") was on fire with it,
highly colored versions of the stories told being circulated from
the "first class" downward, even taking the form of an Indian princess,
tattooed blue, and with difficulty restrained from indulging in
war-whoops,--which last feature so alarmed little Miss Bigbee, aged
seven, that she retired in fear and trembling, and shed tears under the
bedclothes; her terror and anguish being much increased by the stirring
recitals of scalping-stories by pretty Miss Phipps, of the first