"It is nothing like a kettle-drum."

"I am not sure that I know what a kettle-drum is," Lucia answered. "They
have them in London, I think; but I have never been to London."

"They have them in New York," said Octavia; "and they are a crowded sort
of afternoon parties, where ladies go in carriage-toilet, not evening
dress. People are rushing in and out all the time."

Lucia glanced around the room and smiled.

"That is very unlike this," she remarked.

"Well," said Octavia, "I should think that, after all, this might be
nicer."

Which was very civil.

Lucia glanced around again--this time rather stealthily--at Lady
Theobald. Then she glanced back at Octavia.

"But it isn't," she said, in an undertone.

Octavia began to laugh. They were on a new and familiar footing from
that moment.

"I said 'it might,'" she answered.

She was not afraid, any longer, of finding the evening stupid. If there
were no young men, there was at least a young woman who was in sympathy