"It is so very little," faltered Lucia, "that—that perhaps it isn't a reason."
Octavia looked at herself in the glass again.
"It isn't a very good reason," she remarked, "but I suppose it will do."
She paused, and looked Lucia in the face.
"I don't think that's a little thing," she said. "To be told you look like an opéra bouffe actress."
"I did not mean to say so," cried Lucia, filled with the most poignant distress. "I beg your pardon, indeed—I—oh, dear! I was afraid you wouldn't like it. I felt that it was taking a great liberty."
"I don't like it," answered Octavia; "but that can't be helped. I didn't exactly suppose I should. But I wasn't going to say any thing about your hair when I began," glancing at poor Lucia's coiffure, "though I suppose I might."
"You might say a thousand things about it!" cried Lucia piteously. "I know that mine is not only in bad taste, but it is ugly and unbecoming."
"Yes," said Octavia cruelly, "it is."
"And yours is neither the one nor the other," protested Lucia. "You know I told you it was pretty, Octavia."