"No," she answered: "I am not afraid at all. I shall not be afraid again."
In fact, she had perfectly confounded her ladyship by her demeanor. She bore her fiercest glance without quailing in the least, or making any effort to evade it: under her most scathing comments she was composed and unmoved. On the first occasion of my lady's referring to her plans for her future, she received a blow which fairly stunned her. The girl rose from her chair, and looked her straight in the face unflinchingly, and with a suggestion of hauteur not easy to confront.
"I beg you will not speak to me of that again," she said: "I will not listen." And turning about, she walked out of the room.
"This," her ladyship had said in sepulchral tones, when she recovered her breath, "this is one of the results of Miss Octavia Bassett." And nothing more had been said on the subject since.
No one in Slowbridge was in more brilliant spirits than Octavia herself on the morning of the fête. Before breakfast Miss Belinda was startled by the arrival of another telegram, which ran as follows:—
"Arrived to-day, per 'Russia.' Be with you tomorrow evening. Friend with me.
"MARTIN BASSETT."
On reading this communication, Miss Belinda burst into floods of delighted tears.
"Dear, dear Martin," she wept; "to think that we should meet again! Why didn't he let us know he was on the way? I should have been so anxious that I should not have slept at all."
"Well," remarked Octavia, "I suppose that would have been an advantage."