For a moment Octavia stood gazing at herself, with pale face and dilated eyes. Then suddenly the folly of the deed she had done seemed to reveal itself to her. "Oh!" she cried out. "Oh, how diabolical it looks!" She turned upon Lucia. "Why did you make me do it?" she exclaimed. "It's all your fault--every bit of it;" and, flinging the scissors to the other end of the room, she threw herself into a chair, and burst into tears. Lucia's anguish of mind was almost more than she could bear. For at least three minutes she felt herself a criminal of the deepest dye; after the three minutes had elapsed, however, she began to reason, and called to mind the fact that she was failing as usual under her crisis. "This is being a coward again," she said to herself. "It is worse than to have said nothing. It is true that she will look more refined, now one can see a little of her forehead; and it is cowardly to be afraid to stand firm when I really think so. I--yes, I will say something to her." "Octavia," she began aloud, "I am sure you are making a mistake again." This as decidedly as possible, which was not very decidedly. "You--you look very much--nicer." "I look _ghastly_!" said Octavia, who began to feel rather absurd. "You do not. Your forehead--you have the prettiest forehead I ever saw, Octavia," said Lucia eagerly; "and your eyebrows are perfect. I--wish you would look at yourself again." Rather to her surprise, Octavia began to laugh under cover of her handkerchief: reaction had set in, and, though the laugh was a trifle hysterical, it was still a laugh. Next she gave her eyes a final little dab, and rose to go to the glass again. She looked at herself, touched up the short, waving fringe left on her forehead, and turned to Lucia, with a resigned expression. "Do you think that any one who was used to seeing it the other way would--would think I looked horrid?" she inquired anxiously. "They would think you prettier,--a great deal," Lucia answered earnestly. "Don't you know, Octavia, that nothing could be really unbecoming to you? You have that kind of face." For a few seconds Octavia seemed to lose herself in thought of a speculative nature. "Jack always said so," she remarked at length. "Jack!" repeated Lucia timidly. Octavia roused herself, and smiled with candid sweetness. "He is some one I knew in Nevada," she explained. "He worked in father's mine once." "You must have known him very well," suggested Lucia, somewhat awed. "I did," she replied calmly. "Very well." She tucked away her pocket-handkerchief in the jaunty pocket at the back of her basque, and returned to her chair. Then she turned again to Lucia. "Well," she said, "I think you have found out that you _were_ mistaken, haven't you, dear? Suppose you tell me of something else." Lucia colored. "No," she answered: "that is enough for to-day." CHAPTER XX. PECULIAR TO NEVADA.