"Your niece, mum, from 'Meriker!"

And, with the words, her niece entered.

Miss Belinda put her hand to her heart.

The young lady thus announced was the prettiest, and at the same time the
most extraordinary-looking, young lady she had ever seen in her life.
Slowbridge contained nothing approaching this niece. Her dress was so
very stylish that it was quite startling in its effect; her forehead was
covered down to her large, pretty eyes themselves, with curls of
yellow-brown hair; and her slender throat was swathed round and round
with a grand scarf of black lace.

She made a step forward, and then stopped, looking at Miss Belinda. Her
eyes suddenly, to Miss Belinda's amazement, filled with tears.

"Didn't you," she said,--"oh, dear! _Didn't_ you get the letter?"

"The--the letter!" faltered Miss Belinda. "What letter, my--my dear?"

"Pa's," was the answer. "Oh! I see you didn't."

And she sank into the nearest chair, putting her hands up to her face,
and beginning to cry outright.

"I--am Octavia B-bassett," she said. "We were coming to surp-prise you,
and travel in Europe; but the mines went wrong, and p-pa was obliged to
go back to Nevada."