"Everybody knows Elmfield," said Diana; "and I guessed—"
"From my dress?" said Mr. Knowlton, following the direction of her look. "This was accident too. But which of my friends ought I to know here, that I don't know? Pardon me,—but is this horse to be put to the waggon or taken away from it?"
"O, I was going to put him in."
"Allow me"—said the young man, taking the halter from Diana's willing hands; "but where is the harnessing gear?"
"O, that is in the barn!" exclaimed Diana. "I will go and fetch it."
"Pray no! Let me get it," said her companion; and giving the end of the halter a turn round one of the thills, he had overtaken her before she had well taken half a dozen steps. They went together through the barnyard. Diana found the harness, and the young officer threw it over his shoulder with a smile at her which answered her deprecating words; a smile extremely pleasant and gentlemanly, if withal a little arch. Diana shrank back somewhat before the glance, which to her fancy showed the power of keen observation along with the habit of giving orders. They went back to the elm, and Mr. Knowlton harnessed the horse, Diana explaining in a word or two the necessity under which she had been acting.
"And what about my dilemma?" said he presently, as his task was finished.
"There is no horse or waggon you could get anywhere, that I know of," said Diana. "The teams are apt to be in use just now. But I am going down to within a mile of Elmfield; and I was going to say, if you like, I can take you so far."
"And who will do me such kindness?"
"Who? O—Diana Starling."
"Is that a name I ought to know?" inquired Mr. Knowlton. "I shall know it from this day; but how about before to-day? I have been gone from Pleasant Valley, at school and at the Military Academy, four, five,—ten years."
"Mother came back here to live just ten years ago."
"My conscience is clear!" he said, smiling. "I was beginning to whip myself. Now are we ready?"
Not quite, for Diana went into the house for her gloves and a straw hat; she made no other change in her dress, having taken off her apron before she set out after Prince. She found her new friend standing with the reins in his hand, as if he were to drive and not she; and Diana was helped into her own waggon with a deferential courtesy which up to that time she had only read of in books; nor known much even so. It silenced her at first. She sat down as mute as a child; and Mr. Knowlton handled Prince and the waggon and all in the style of one that knew how and had the right.
That drive, however, was not to be silent or stiff in any degree. Mr. Knowlton, for his part, had no shyness or hesitation belonging to him. He had seen the world and learnt its freedom. Diana was only a simple country girl, and had never seen the world; yet she was as little troubled with embarrassment of any sort. Partly this was, no doubt, because of her sound, healthy New England nature; the solid self-respect which does not need—nor use—to put itself in the balance with anything else to be assured of its own quality. But part belonged to Diana's own personalty; in a simple, large nature, too simple and too large to feel small motives or to know petty issues. If her cheeks and brow were flushed at first, it was because the sun had been hot in the lot and Prince tiresome. She was as composedly herself as ever the young officer could be. But I think each of them was a little excited by the companionship of the other.
"Do you drive this old fellow yourself?" asked Mr. Knowlton, after a little. "But I need not ask! Of course you do. There's no difficulty. And not much danger," he added, with a tone so dry and comical that they both burst into a laugh.
"I assure you I am very glad to have Prince," said Diana. "He is so old now that they generally let him off from the farm work. He takes mother and me to church, and stands ready for anything I want most of the time."
"Lucky for me, too," said Mr. Knowlton. "I am afraid you will find the sun very hot!"
"I? O no, I don't mind it at all," said Diana. "There's a nice air now.Where is your horse, Mr. Knowlton? you said you had an accident."
"Yes. That was a quarter of a mile or so beyond your house."
"And is your horse there?"
"Must be, I think. I shall send some people to remove him."
"Why, is hedead?"
"I should not have left him else, Miss Starling."
Diana did not choose to go on with a string of questions; and her companion hesitated.
"It's my own fault," he said with a sort of displeased half laugh; "a piece of boyish thoughtlessness that I've paid for. There was a nice red cow lying in the middle of the road"—
"Where?" said Diana, wondering.
"Just ahead of me; a few rods. She was lying quite quietly, taking her morning siesta in the sun; plunged in ruminative thoughts, I supposed, and the temptation was irresistible to go over without disturbing her."
"Overher?" said Diana in a maze.
"Yes. I counted on what one should never count on—what I didn't know."
"What was that?"
"Whether it would occur to her to get upon her legs, just at that moment."
"And she did?" inquired Diana.
"She did."
"What did that do, Mr. Knowlton?"
"Threw my poor steed offhislegs forever!" And here, in despite of his vexation, which was real and apparent, the young man burst into a laugh. Diana had not got at his meaning.
"And where were you, Mr. Knowlton?"
"On his back. I shall never forgive myself for being such a boy. Don't you understand? The creature rose up just in time to be in the way of my leap, and we were thrown over—my horse and I."
"Thrown! You were not hurt, Mr. Knowlton?"
"I deserved it, didn't? But I was nothing the worse—except for losing my horse, and my self-complacency."
"Was the horse killed?"
"No; not by the fall. But he was injured; so that I saw the best thing to do would be to put him out of life at once; so I did it. I had my pistols; I often ride with them, to be ready for any sport that may offer. I am very much ashamed, to have to tell you this story of myself!"
There was so much of earnestness in the expression of the last sentence, it was said with such a deferential contrition, if I may so speak, that Diana's thoughts experienced a diversion from the subject that had occasioned them. The contrition came more home than the fault. By common consent they went off to other matters of talk. Diana explained and commented on the history and features of Pleasant Valley, so far at least as her companion's questions called for such explanation, and that was a good deal. Mr. Knowlton gave her details of his own life and experience, which were much more interesting, she thought. The conversation ran freely; and again and again eyes met eyes full in sympathy over some grave or laughing point of intelligence.
And what is there in the meeting of eyes? What if the one pair were sparkling and quick, and the brow over them bore the fair lines of command? What though the other pair were deep and thoughtful and sweet, and the brow one that promised passion and power? A thousand other eyes might have looked on either one of them, and forgotten; these two looked—and remembered. You cannot tell why; it is the old story; the hidden, unreadable affinity making itself known to its counterpart; the sign and countersign of nature. But it was only nature that gave and took; not Diana and Mr. Knowlton.
Meanwhile Prince had an easy time; and the little waggon went very gently over the smooth roads past one farm after another.
"Princecango faster than this," Diana confided at last to her companion.
"He doesn't want to, does he?"
Diana laughed, and knew in her heart she was of Prince's mind.
However, even five miles will come to an end in time if you keep going even slowly; and in time the little brown house of Mrs. Bartlett appeared in the distance, and Prince drew the waggon up before the door. Diana alighted, and Mr. Knowlton drove on, promising to send the waggon back from Elmfield.
It was coming down, in more ways than one, to get out of the waggon and go in to make her visit. Diana did not feel just ready for it. She loosened the strings of her hat, walked slowly up the path between the hollyhocks that led to the door, and there stopped and turned to take a last look at Mr. Knowlton in the distance. Such a ride as she had had! Such an entertainment! People in Pleasant Valley did not talk like that; nor look like that. How much difference it makes, to have education and to see the world! And a military education especially has a more liberalizing and adorning effect than the course of life in the colleges; the manner of a soldier has in it a charm which is wanting in the manner of a minister. As for farmers, they have no manners at all. And the very faces, thought Diana.
Well, she could not stand there on the door-step. She must go in. She turned and lifted the latch of the door.
The little room within was empty. It was a tiny house; the ground floor boasted only two rooms, and each of those was small. The broad hearth of flagstones took up a third of the floor of this one. A fire burned in the chimney, though the day was so warm; and a straight-backed arm-chair, with a faded cushion in it, stood by the chimney corner with a bunch of knitting lying on the cushion. Diana tapped at an inner door at her right, and then getting no answer, went across the kitchen and opened another opposite the one that had admitted her.
The little house, unpainted like many others, had no fenced enclosure on this side. A wide field stretched away from the back door, lying partly upon a hill-side; and several cattle were pasturing in it. Farm fields and meadows were all around, except where this one hill rose up behind the house. It was wooded at the top; below, the ranks of a cornfield sloped aspiringly up its base. A narrow footpath, which only the tread of feet kept free from weeds and grass, went off obliquely to a little enclosed garden, which lay beyond the corner of the house in some arbitrary and independent way, not adjoining it at all. It was a sweet bit of country, soft and mellow under the summer sun; still as grasshoppers and the tinkle of a cowbell could make it; and very far from most of the improvements of the nineteenth century. But the smell of the pasture and the fragrance that came from the fresh shades of the wood, and the freedom of the broad fields of pure ether, made it rich with some of nature's homely wealth; which is not by any means the worst there is. Diana knew the place very well; her eyes were looking now for the mistress of it. And not long. In the out-of-the-way lying garden she discerned her white cap; and at the gate met her bringing a head of lettuce in her hands.
"I knew you liked it, dear," she said, "and I had forgot all about it; and then it flashed on me, and I thought, Diana will like to have it for her dinner; and I guess it'll have time to cool. Just put it in a tin pail, dear, and hang it down in the well; and it'll be fresh."
This was done, and Diana came in and took a seat by her old friend.
"You needn't do that for me, Mother Bartlett. I don't care what I have to eat."
"Most folks like what is good," said the old lady; "suppos'n they know it."
"Yes, and so do I, but"—
"I made a pot-pie for ye," the old lady went on contentedly.
"And I suppose you have left nothing at all for me to do, as usual. It is too bad, Mother Bartlett."
"You shall do all the rest," said her friend; "and now you may talk to me."
She was a trim little old woman, not near so tall as her visitor; very wrinkled, but fresh-skinned, and with a quick grey eye. Her dress was a common working dress of some dark stuff; coarse, but tidy and nice-looking; her cap white and plain; she sat in her arm-chair, setting her little feet to the fire, and her fingers merrily clicking her needles together; a very comfortable vision. The kitchen and its furniture were as neat as a pin.
"I don't see how you manage, Mother Bartlett," Diana went on, glancing around. "You ought to have some one to live with you and help you. It looks as if you had half a dozen."
"Not much," said the old lady, laughing. "A half dozen would soon make a muss, of one sort or another. There's nothin' like having nobody."
"But you might be sick."
"I might be;—but I ain't," said Mrs. Bartlett, running one end of a knitting-needle under her cap and looking placidly at Diana.
"But you might want somebody."
"When I do I send for 'em. I sent for you to-day, child; and here you are."
"But you are quite well to-day?" said Diana a little anxiously.
"I am always well. Never better."
"How old are you, Mother Bartlett?"
"Seventy-three years, child."
"Well, I do think you oughtn't to be here alone. It don't seem right, and I don't think it is right."
"What's to do, child? There ain't nary one to come and live with me. They're all gone but Joe. My Lord knows I'm an old woman seventy-three years of age."
"What then, Mother Bartlett?" Diana asked curiously.
"He'll take care of me, my dear."
"But then, we ought to take care of ourselves," said Diana. "Now if Joe would marry somebody"—
"Joe ain't lucky in that line," said the old lady laughing again. "And may be what he might like, I mightn't. Before you go to wishin' for changes, you'd better know what they'll be. I'm content child. There ain't a thing on earth I want that I haven't got. Now what's the news?"
Diana began and told her the whole story of the sewing meeting and the accident and the nursing of the injured girl. Mrs. Bartlett had an intense interest in every particular; and what Diana failed to remember, her questions brought out.
"And how do you like the new minister?"
"Haven't you seen him yet?"
"Nay. He hain't been down my way yet. In good time he will. He's had sick folks to see arter, Joe told me; old Jemmy Claflin, and Joe Simmons' boy; and Mis' Atwood, and Eliza."
"I think you'll like him," said Diana slowly. "He's not like any minister everIsaw."
"What's the odds?"
"It isn't so easy to tell. He don't look like a minister, for one thing; nor he don't talk like one; not a bit."
"Have we got a gay parson, then?" said the old lady, slightly raising her eyebrows.
"Gay? O no! not in the way you mean. In one way heisgay; he is very pleasant; not stiff or grum, like Mr. Hardenburgh; and he is amusing too, in a quiet way, but heisamusing; he is so cool and so quick. O no, he's not gay in the way you mean. I guess he's good."
"Do you like him?" Mrs. Bartlett asked.
"Yes," said Diana, thinking of the night of Eliza Delamater's accident."He is very queer."
"I don't seem to make him out by your telling, child. I'll have to wait, I guess. I've got no sort of an idea of him, so far. Now, dear, if you'll set the table—dinner's ready; and then we'll have some reading."
Diana drew out a small deal table to the middle of the floor, and set on it the delf plates and cups and saucers, the little saltcellar of the same ware, and the knives and forks that were never near Sheffield; in fact, were never steel. But the lettuce came out of the well crisp and fresh and cool; and Mrs. Bartlett's pot-pie crust came out of the pot as spongy and light as possible; and the loaf of "seconds" bread was sweet as it is hard for bread to be that is not made near the mill; and if you and I had been there, I promise you we would not have minded the knives and forks, or the cups either. Mrs. Bartlett's tea was not of corresponding quality, for it came from a country store. However, the cream went far to mend even that. The back door was open for the heat; and the hill-side could be seen through the doorway and part of the soft green meadow slope; and the grasshopper's song and the bell tinkle were not bad music.
"And who was that came with you, dear?" Mrs. Bartlett asked as they sat at table.
"With me? Did you see me come?"
"Surely. I was in the garden. What should hinder me? Who was it druv you, dear?"
"It was an accident. Young Mr. Knowlton had got into some trouble with his horse, riding out our way, and came to ask how he could get home. So I brought him."
"That's Evan Knowlton! him they are making a soldier of?"
"He's made. He's done with his education. He is at home now."
"Ain't goin' to be a soldier after all?"
"O yes; heisa soldier; but he has got a leave, to be home for awhile."
"Well, what sort is he? I don't see what they wanted to make a soldier of him for; his grand'ther would ha' been the better o' his help on the farm, seems to me; and now he'll be off to the ends o' the earth, and doin' nobody knows what. It's the wisdom o' this world. But how has he turned out, Die?"
"I don't know; well, I should think."
"And his sisters at home would ha' been the better of him. By-and-by Mr. Bowdoin will die; and then who'll look after the farm, or the girls?"
"Still, mother, it's something more and something better to be educated, as he is, and to know the world and all sorts of things, as he does, than just to live on the farm here in the mountains, and raise corn and eat it, and nothing else. Isn't it?"
"Why should it be better, child?"
"It is nice to be educated," said Diana softly. And she thought much more than she said.
"A man can get as much edication as he can hold, and live on a farm too. I've seen sich. Some folks can't do no better than hoe—corn like my Joe. But there ain't no necessity for that. But arter all, what does folks live for, Diana?"
"I never could make out, Mother Bartlett."
The old lady looked at her thoughtfully and wistfully, but said no more. Diana cleared the table and washed the few dishes; and when all was straight again, took out a newspaper she had brought from home, and she and the old lady settled themselves for an afternoon of enjoyment. For it was that to both parties. At home Diana cared little about the paper; here it was quite another thing. Mrs. Bartlett wanted to hear all there was in it; public doings, foreign doings, city news, editor's gossip; and even the advertisements came in for their share of pleasure-giving. New inventions had an interest; tokens of the world's movements, or the world's wants, in other notices, were found suggestive of thought or provocative of wonder. Sitting with her feet put towards the fire, her knitting in her hands, the quick grey eyes studied Diana's face as she read, never needing to give their supervision to the fingers; and the coarse blue yarn stocking, which was doubtless destined for Joe, grew visibly in length while the eyes and thoughts of the knitter were busy elsewhere. The newspaper filled a good part of the afternoon; for the reading was often interrupted for talk which grew out of it. When at last it was done, and Mrs. Bartlett's eyes returned to the fire, there were a few minutes of stillness; then she said gently,
"Now, our other reading, dear?"
"You like this the best, Mother Bartlett, don't you?" said Diana, as she rose and brought from the inner room a large volume;theBook, as any one might know at a glance; carefully covered with a sewn cover of coarse cloth. "Where shall I read now?"
The place indicated was the beginning of the Revelation, a favourite book with the old lady. And as she listened, the knitting grew slower; though, true to the instinctive habit of doing something, the fingers never ceased absolutely their work. But they moved slowly; and the old lady's eyes, no longer on the fire, went out of the open window, and gazed with a far-away gaze that went surely beyond the visible heaven; so wrapt and steady it was. Diana, sitting on a low seat at her feet, glanced up sometimes; but seeing that gaze, looked down and went on again with her reading and would not break the spell. At last, having read several chapters without a word of interruption, she stopped. The old lady's eyes came back to her knitting, which began to go a little faster.
"Do you like all this so much?" Diana asked. "I know you do; but I can't see why you do. You can't understand it."
"I guess I do," said the old lady. "I seem to, anyhow. It's queer if I don't."
"But you can't make anything of all those horses?"
"Why, it's just what you've been readin' about all the afternoon."
"In the newspaper!" cried Diana.
"It's many a year that I've been lookin' at it," said the old lady; "ever sen I heard it all explained by a good minister. I've been lookin' at it ever sen." She spoke dreamily.
"It's all words and words to me," said Diana.
"There's a blessin' belongs to studyin' them words, though. Those horses are the works and judgments of the Lord that are goin' on in all the earth, to prepare the way of his comin'."
"Whose coming?"
"The Lord's comin'," said the old lady solemnly. "The white horse, that's victory; that's goin' on conquering and to conquer; that's the truth and power of the Lord bringin' his kingdom. The red horse, that's war; ah, how that red horse has tramped round the world! he's left the marks of his hoofs on our own ground not long sen; and now you've been readin' to me about his goin's on elsewhere. The black horse, that's famine; and not downright starvation, the minister said, but just want; grindin' and pressin' people down. Ain't there enough o' that in the world? not just so bad in Pleasant Valley, but all over. And the pale horse—what is it the book calls him?—that's death; and he comes to Pleasant Valley as he comes everywhere. They've been goin', those four, ever sen the world was a world o' fallen men."
"But what do they do to prepare the way for the Lord's coming?" saidDiana.
"What do I know?That'll be known when the book shall come to be read, I s'pose. I'm waitin'. I'll know by and by"—
"Only I can seem to see so much as this," the old lady went on after a pause. "The Lord won't have folk to settle down accordin' to their will into a contented forgetfulness o' him; so he won't let there be peace till the King o' Peace comes. O, I'd be glad if he'd come!"
"But that will be the end of the world," said Diana.
"Well," said Mrs. Bartlett, "it might be the end of the world for all I care; if it would bring Him. What do I live for?"
"You know I don't understand you, Mother Bartlett," said Diana gently.
"Well, what do you live for, child?"
"I don't know," said Diana slowly. "Nothing. I help mother make butter and cheese; and I make my clothes, and do the housework. And next year it'll be the same thing; and the next year after that. It don't amount to anything."
"And do you think the Lord made you—you pretty creatur!"—said the old lady, softly passing her hand down the side of Diana's face,—"for nothin' better than to make cheese and butter?"
Diana smiled and blushed brightly at her old friend, a lovely child's smile.
"I may come to be married, you know, one of these days! But after all,thatdon't make any difference. It's the same thing, married or not married. People all do the same things, day after day, till they die."
"If that was all"—said the old lady meditatively, looking into the fire and knitting slowly.
"Itisall; except that here and there there is somebody who knows more and can do something better; I suppose life is something more to them. But they are mostly men."
"Edication's a fine thing," Mrs. Bartlett went on in the same manner; "but there's two sorts. There's two sorts, Diana. I hain't got much,—o' one kind; I never had no chance to get it, so I've done without it. And now my life's so near done, it don't seem much matter. But there's the other sort, that ain't learned at no 'cademy. The Lord put me intohisschool forty-four years ago—where he puts all his children; and if they learn their lessons, he takes 'em up and up,—some o' the lessons is hard to learn,—but he takes 'em up and up; till life ain't a puzzle no longer, and they begin to know the language o' heaven, where his courts be. And that's edication that's worth havin',—when one's just goin' there, as I be."
"How do you get into that school, Mother Bartlett?" Diana asked thoughtfully, and yet with her mind not all upon what she was saying,
"You are in it, my dear. The good Lord sends his lessons and his teachers to every one; but it's no use to most folks; they won't take no notice."
"What 'teachers'?" said Diana, smiling.
"There's a host of them," said Mrs. Bartlett; "and of all sorts. Why, I seem to be in the midst of 'em, Diana. The sun is a teacher to me every day; and the clouds, and the air, and the colours. The hill and the pasture ahint the house,—I've learned a heap of lessons from 'em. And I'm learnin' 'em all the time, till I seem to be rich with what they're tellin' me. So rich, some days I 'most wonder at myself. No doubt, to hear all them voices, one must hear the voice o' the Word. And then there's many other voices; but they don't come just so to all. I could tell you some o' mine; but the ones that'll come to you'll be sure to be different; so you couldn't learn fromthem, child. And folks thinks I'm a lonesome old woman!"
"Well, how can they help it?" said Diana.
"It's nat'ral," said Mrs. Bartlett.
"I can't help your seeming so to me."
"Thatain'tnat'ral, for you had ought to know better. They think, folks does,—I know,—I'm a poor lone old woman, just going to die."
"But isn't that nearly true?" said Diana gently.
There was a slight glad smile on the withered lips as Mrs. Bartlett turned towards her.
"You have the book there on your lap, dear. Just find the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John, and read the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth verses. And when you feel inclined to think that o' me agin, just wait till you know what they mean."
Diana found and read:—
"'Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whoesoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.'"
June had changed for July; but no heats ever withered the green of the Pleasant Valley hills, nor browned its pastures; and no droughts ever stopped the tinkling of its rills and brooks, which rolled down, every one of them, over gravelly pebbly beds to lose themselves in lake or river. Sun enough to cure the hay and ripen the grain, they had; and July was sweet with the perfume of hayfield, and lovely with brown hayricks, and musical with the whetting of scythes. Mrs. Starling's little farm had a good deal of grass land; and the haying was proportionally a busy season. For haymakers, according to the general tradition of the country, in common with reapers, are expected to eat more than ordinary men, or men in ordinary employments; and to furnish the meals for the day kept both Mrs. Starling and her daughter busy.
It was mid-afternoon, sunny, perfumed, still; the afternoon luncheon had gone out to the men, who were cutting then in the meadow which surrounded the house. Diana found her hands free; and had gone up to her room, not to rest, for she was not tired, but to get out of the atmosphere of the kitchen and breathe a few minutes without thinking of cheese and gingerbread. She had begun to change her dress; but leisure wooed her, and she took up a book and presently forgot even that care in the delight of getting into a region ofthought. For Diana's book was not a novel; few such found their way to Pleasant Valley, and seldom one to Mrs. Starling's house. Her father's library was quite unexhausted still, its volumes took so long to read and needed so much thinking over; and now she was deep in a treatise more solid and less attractive than most young women are willing to read. It carried her out of the round of daily duties and took her away from Pleasant Valley altogether, and so was a great refreshment. Besides, Diana liked thinking.
Once or twice a creak of a farm waggon was heard along the road; it was too well known a sound to awake her attention; then came a sound far less common—the sharp trot of a horse moving without wheels behind him. Diana started instantly and went to a window that commanded the road. The sound ceased, but she saw why; the rider had reined in his steed and was walking slowly past; the same rider she had expected to see, with the dark uniform and the soldier's cap. He looked hard at the place; could he be stopping? The next moment Diana had flown back to her own room, had dropped the dress which was half off, and was arraying herself in a fresh print; and she was down-stairs almost as soon as the visitor knocked. Diana opened the door. She knew Mrs. Starling was deep in supper preparations, mingled with provisions for the next day's lunches.
Uniforms have a great effect, to eyes unaccustomed to them. How Lieut. Knowlton came to be wearing his uniform in the country, so far away from any post, I don't know; perhaps he did. Hesaid, that he had nothing else he liked for riding in. But a blue frock, with gold bars across the shoulders and military buttons, is more graceful than a frieze coat. And it was a gracious, graceful head that was bared at the sight of the door-opener.
"You see," he said with a smile, "I couldn't go by! The other day I was your pensioner, in kindness. Now I want to come in my own character, if you'll let me."
"Is it different from the character I saw the other day?" said Diana, as she led the way into the parlour.
"You did not see my character the other day, did you?"
"I saw what you showed me!"
He laughed, and then laughed again; looking a little surprised, a good deal amused.
"I would give a great deal to know what you thought of me."
"Why would you?" Diana said, quite quietly.
"That I might correct your mistakes, of course."
"Suppose I made any mistakes," said Diana, "you could only tell me that you thought differently. I don't see that I should be much wiser."
"I find I made a mistake about you!" he said, laughing again, but shaking his head. "But every person is like a new language to those that see him for the first time; don't you think so? One has to learn the signs of the language by degrees, before one can read it off like a book."
"I never thought about that," said Diana. "No; I think that is true ofsomepeople; not everybody. All the Pleasant Valley people seem to me to belong to one language. All except one, perhaps."
"Who is the exception?" Mr. Knowlton asked quickly.
"I don't know whether you know him."
"O, I know everybody here—or I used to."
"I was thinking of somebody who didn't use to be here. He has only just come. I mean Mr. Masters."
"The parson?"
"Yes."
"I don't know him much. I suppose he belongs to theparsonlanguage, to carry on our figure. They all do."
"He don't," said Diana. "That is what struck me in him. What are the signs of the 'parson' language?"
"A black coat and a white neckcloth, to begin with."
"He dresses in grey," said Diana laughing, "or in white; and wears any sort of a cravat."
"To go on,—Generally a grave face and a manner of great propriety; with a square way of arranging words."
"Mr. Masters has no manner at all; and he is one of the most entertaining people I ever knew."
"Jolly sort, eh?"
"No, I think not," said Diana; "I don't know exactly what you mean by jolly; he is never silly, and he does not laugh much particularly; but he can make other people laugh."
"Well, another sign is, they put a religious varnish over common things. Do you recognise that?"
"I recognise that, for I have seen it; but it isn't true of Mr.Masters."
"I give him up," said young Knowlton. "I am sure I shouldn't like him."
"Why, do youlikethese common signs of the 'parson language,' as you call it, that you have been reckoning?"
The answer was a decided negative accompanied with a laugh again; and then Diana's visitor turned the conversation to the country, and the place, and the elm trees; looked out of the window and observed that the haymakers were at work near the house, and finally said he must go out to look at them nearer—he had not made hay since he was a boy.
He went out, and Diana went back to her mother in the lean-to.
"Mother, young Mr. Knowlton is here."
"Well, keep him out o'myway; that's all I ask."
"Haven't you got through yet?"
"Through! There was but one single pan of ginger-bread left this noon; and there ain't more'n three loaves o' bread in the pantry. What's that among a tribe o' such grampuses? I've got to make biscuits for tea, Di; and I may as well get the pie-crust off my hands at the same time; it'll be so much done for to-morrow. I wish you'd pick over the berries. And then I'll find you something else to do. If I had six hands and two heads, I guess I could about get along."
"But, mother, it won't do for nobody to be in the parlour."
"I thought he was gone?"
"Only gone out into the field to see the haymakers."
"Queer company!" said Mrs. Starling, leaving her bowl of dough, with flowery hands, to peer out of a window. "You may make your mind easy, Di; he won't come in again. I declare! he's got his coat off and he's gone at it himself; ain't that him?"
Diana looked and allowed that it was. Mr. Knowlton had got a rake in hand, his coat hung on the fence, and he was raking hay as busily as the best of them. Diana gave a little sigh, and turned to her pan of berries. This young officer was a new language to her, and she would have liked, she thought, to spell out a little more of its graceful peculiarities. The berries took a good while. Meantime Mrs. Starling's biscuit went into the oven, and a sweet smell began to come thereout. Mrs. Starling bustled about setting the table; with cold pork and pickles, and cheese and berry pie, and piles of bread brown and white. Clearly the haymakers were expected to supper.
"Mother," said Diana doubtfully, when she had washed her hands from the berry stains, "will you bring Mr. Knowlton outhereto tea, if he should possibly stay?"
"He's gone, child, this age."
"No, he isn't."
"He ain't out yonder any more."
"But his horse stands by the fence under the elm."
"I wish he was farther, then! Yes, of course he'll come here, if he takes supper withmeto-night. I don't think he will. I don't know him, and I don't know as I want to."
But this vaguely expressed hope was disappointed. The young officer came in, a little while before supper; laughingly asked Diana for some water to wash his hands; and followed her out to the lean-to. There he was introduced to Mrs. Starling, and informed her he had been doing her work, begging to know if that did not entitle him to some supper. I think Mrs. Starling was a little sorry then that she had not made preparations to receive him more elegantly; but it was too late now; she only rushed a little nervously to fetch him a finer white towel than those which usually did kitchen duty for herself and Diana; and then the biscuits were baked, and the farm hands came streaming in.
There were several of them, now in haying time, headed by Josiah Davis, Mrs. Starling's ordinary stand-by. Heavy and clumsy, warm from the hay-field, a little awkward at sight of the company, they filed in and dropped into their several seats round one end of the table; and Mrs. Starling could only play all her hospitable arts around her guest, to make him forget if possible his unwonted companions. She served him assiduously with the best she had on the table; she would not bring on any dainties extra; and the young officer took kindly even to the pork and pickles, and declared the brown bread was worth working for; and when Mrs. Starling let fall a word of regretful apology, assured her that in the times when he was a cadet he would have risked getting a good many marks for the sake of such a meal.
"What are the marks for?" inquired Mrs. Starling curiously.
"Bad boys," he told her; and then went off to a discussion of her hay crop, and a dissertation on the delights of making hay and the pleasure he had had from it that afternoon; "something he did not very often enjoy."
"Can't you make hay anywheres?" Mrs. Starling asked a little dryly.
He gravely assured her it would not be considered military.
"I don't know what military means," said Mrs. Starling. "Youare military, ain't you?"
"Mean to be," he answered seriously.
"Well, you are. Then, I should think, whatever you do would be military."
But at this giving of judgment, after a minute of, perhaps, endeavour for self-control, Mr. Knowlton broke down and laughed furiously. Mrs. Starling looked stern. Diana was in a state of indecision, whether to laugh with her friend or frown with her mother; but the infection of fun was too much for her—the pretty lips gave way. Maybe that was encouragement for the offender; for he did not show any embarrassment or express any contrition.
"You do me too much honour," he said as soon as he could make his voice steady; "you do me too much honour, Mrs. Starling. I assure you, I have been most unmilitary this afternoon; but really I am no better than a boy when the temptation takes me; and the temptation of your meadow and those long windrows was too much for me. I enjoyed it hugely. I am coming again, may I?"
"You'll have to be quick about it, then," said Mrs Starling, not much mollified; "there ain't much more haying to do on the home lot, I guess. Ain't you 'most done, Josiah?"
"How?" said that worthy from the other end of the table. Mrs. Starling had raised her voice, but Josiah's wits always wanted a knock at the door before they would come forth to action.
"Hain't you 'most got through haying?"
"Not nigh."
"Why, what's to do?" inquired the mistress, with a new interest.
"There's all this here lot to finish, and all of Savin hill."
"Savin hill ain't but half in grass."
"Jes' so. There ain't a lock of it cut, though."
"If I was a man," said Mrs. Starling, "I believe I could get the better o' twenty acres o' hay in less time than you take for it. However, I ain't. Mr. Knowlton, do take one o' those cucumbers. I think there ain't a green pickle equal to a cucumber—when it's tender and sharp, as it had ought to be."
"I am sure everything under your hands is as it ought to be," said the young officer, taking the cucumber. "I know these are. Your haymakers have a good time," he added as the men rose, and there was a heavy clangour of boots and grating chairs at the lower end of the table.
"They calculate to have it," said Mrs. Starling. "And all through Pleasant Valley they do have it. There are no poor folks in the place; and there ain't many that calls themselves rich; they all expect to be comfortable; and I guess most of 'em be."
"Just the state of society in which— There's a sweet little stream running through your meadow, Miss Diana," said the young officer with a sudden change of subject. "Where does it go to?"
"It makes a great many turns, through different farms, and then joins your river—the Yellow River—that runs round Elmfield."
"That's a river; this brook is just what I like. I got tired with my labours this afternoon, and then I threw myself down by the side of the water to look at it. I lay there till I had almost forgotten what I was about."
"Not in your shirt sleeves, just as you was?" inquired Mrs. Starling. The inquiry drew another laugh from her guest; and he then asked Diana where the brook came from. If it was pretty, followed up?
"Very pretty!" Diana said. "As soon as you get among the hills and in the woods with it, it is as pretty as it can be; not a bit like what it is here; full of rocks and pools and waterfalls; lovely!"
"Any fish?"
"Beautiful trout."
"Miss Diana, can you fish?"
"No. I never tried."
"Well, trout fishing is not exactly a thing that comes by nature. I must go up that brook. I wish you would go and show me the way. When I see anything pretty, I always want some one to point it out to, or I can't half enjoy it."
"I think it would be the other way," said Diana. "I should be the one to show the brook to you."
"You see if I don't make you find more pretty things than you ever knew were there. Come! is it a bargain? I'll take my line and bring Mrs. Starling some trout."
"When?" said Diana.
"Seems to me," said Mrs. Starling, "I could keep along a brook if I could once get hold of it."
"Ah," said Mr. Knowlton, laughing, "you are a great deal cleverer than I am. You have no idea how fast I can lose myself. Miss Diana, the sooner the better, while this lovely weather lasts. Shall we say to-morrow?"
"I'll be ready," said Diana.
"This weather ain't goin' to change in a hurry," remarked Mrs. Starling.
But the remark did not seem to be to the purpose. The appointment was made for the following day at three o'clock; and Mr. Knowlton's visit having come to an end, he mounted and galloped away.
"Three o'clock!" said Mrs. Starling. "Just the heat o' the day. And trout, indeed! Don't you be a silly fish yourself, Diana."
"Mother!" said Diana. "I couldn't help going, when he asked me."
"You could ha' helped it if you'd wanted to, I s'pose."
Which was no doubt true, and Diana made no response; for she wanted to go. She watched the golden promise of dawn the next morning; she watched the cloudless vault of the sky, and secretly rejoiced within herself that she would be ready.
Doubtless they were ready, those two, for the brook and the afternoon. The young officer came at half-past three; not in regimentals this time, but in an easy grey undress and straw hat. He came in a waggon, and he brought his fishing-rod and carried a basket. Diana had been ready ever since three. They lost no time; they went out into the meadow and struck the brook.
Now the brook, during its passage through the valley field, was remarkable for nothing but a rare infirmity of purpose, which would never let it keep one course for many rods together. It twisted and curled about, making many little meadow promontories on one side and the other; hurrying along with a soft, sweet gurgle that sounded fresh, even under the heat of the summer sun. It was a hot afternoon, as Mrs. Starling had said; and the two excursionists were fain to take it gently and to make as straight a course across the fields as keeping on one side of the brook left possible. They could not cross it. The stream was not large, yet quite too broad for a jump; and not deep, yet deep enough to cover its stony bed and leave no crossing stones. So sometimes along the border of the brook, where a fringe of long grass had been left by the mowers' scythes, rank and tangled; sometimes striking across from bend to bend over the meadow, where no kindly trees stood to shade them, the two went—on a hunt, as Mr. Knowlton said, after pretty things.
After a mile or more of this walking, the scenery changed. Mown fields, hot and fragrant, were left behind; almost suddenly they entered the hills, where the brook issued from them; and then they began a slower tracking of its course back among the rocks and woods of a dell which soon grew close and wild. The sides of the dell became higher; the bed of the stream more steep and rough; the canopy of trees closed in overhead, and showed the blue through only in broken patches. The clothing of the hill-sides was elegant and exquisite; oaks, and firs, and hemlocks, with slender birches and maples, lining the ravine; and under them a free growth of ferns, and fresh beds of moss, and lovely lichens covered the rocks and dressed the ground. The stream rattled along at the bottom; foaming over the stones and leaping down the rocks; making the still, deep pools where the fish love to lie; and in its way executing a succession of cascades and tiny waterfalls that wanted no picturesque element except magnitude. And a good imagination can supply that.
And how went the afternoon? How goes it with those who have just received a new sense, or found a sudden doubling of that which they had before? Nay, it was a new sense, a new power of perception, able to discern what had eluded all their previous lives. The brook in the meadow had been to Diana's vision until now merely running water; whence had come those delicious amber hues where it rolled over the stones, and the deep olive shadows where the water was deeper? She had never seen them before. Now they were pointed out and seen to be rich and clear, a sort of dilution of sunlight, with a suggestion of sunlight's other riches of possibility. The rank unmown grass that fringed the stream, Diana had never seen it but as what the scythe had missed; now she was made to notice what an elegant fringe it was, and how the same sunlight glanced upon its curving stems and blades, and set off the deep brown stream. Diana's own eyes began to be quickened, and her tongue loosed. The lovely outline of the hills that encircled the valley had never looked just so rare and lovely as this afternoon when she pointed them out to her companion, and he scanned them and nodded in full assent. But when they got into the ravine, it was Diana's turn. Mosses, and old trees, and sharp turns of the gorge, and fords, where it was necessary to cross the brook and recross on stepping stones just lifting them above the water, here black enough,—Diana knew all these things, and with secret delight unfolded the knowledge of them to her companion as they went along. And still the bits of blue sky overhead had never seemed so unearthly blue; the drapery of oak and hemlock boughs had never been so graceful and bright; there was a presence in the old gorge that afternoon, which went with them and cleared their eyes from vapour and their minds from everything, it seemed, but a susceptibility to beauty and delight in its influence. Perhaps the young officer would have said that this presence was embodied in the unconscious eyes and fair calm brow which went beside him; I think he saw them more distinctly than anything else. Diana did not know it. Somehow she very rarely looked her companion in the face; and yet she knew very well how his face looked, too; so well, perhaps, that she did not need to refresh her memory. So they wandered on; and the fords were pleasant places, where she had to be helped over the stones. Not that Diana needed such help; her foot was fearless and true; she never had had help there before: was that what made it so pleasant? Certainly it did seem to her that it was a prettier way of going up the brook than alone and unaided.
"I am not getting much fish at this rate," said young Knowlton at length with a light laugh.
"No," said Diana. "Why don't you stop and try here? Here looks like a good place. Right in that still, deep spot, I dare say there are trout.
"What will you do in the meantime, if I stop and fish? It will be very stupid for you."
"For me? O no. I shall sit here and look on. It will not be stupid. I will keep still, never fear."
"I don't want you to keep still; that would be very stupid for me."
"You can't talk while you are fishing; it would scare the trout, you know."
"I don't believe it."
"I have always heard so."
"I don't believe it will pay," said Knowlton as he fitted his rod—"ifI am to purchase trout at the expense of all that."
All what? Diana wondered.
"Suppose we talk very softly—in whispers," he went on, laughing. "Do you suppose the trout are so observant as to mind it? If you sit here,—on this mossy stone, close by me, can't I enjoy two things at once?"
Diana made no objection to this arrangement. She took the place indicated, full of a breathless kind of pleasure which she did not stop to analyze; and watched in silence the progress of the fishing. In silence, for after Mr. Knowlton's arrangement had been carried into effect, he too subsided into stillness; whether engrossed with the business of his line, or satisfied, or with thoughts otherwise engaged, did not appear. But as presently and again a large trout, speckled and beautiful, was swung up out of the pool below, the two faces were turned towards each other, and the two pairs of eyes met with a smile of so much sympathy, that I rather think the temporary absence of words lost nothing to the growth of the understanding between them.
The place where they sat was lovely. Just there the bank was high, overhanging the brook. A projecting rock, brown and green and grey, with lichen and mosses of various kinds, held besides a delicate young silver birch, the roots of which found their way to nourishment somehow through fissures in the rock. Here sat Knowlton, with Diana beside him on a stone, just a little behind; while he sat on the brink to cast, or rather drop, his line into the little pool below where the trout were lurking. The opposite side of the stream was but a few yards off, thick with a lovely growth of young wood, with one great hemlock not far above towering up towards the sky. The view in that direction went up a vista of the ravine, so wood-fringed on both sides, with the stream leaping and tumbling down a steep rocky bed. Overhead the narrow line of blue sky.
"Four!" whispered Diana, as another spotted trout came up from the pool.
"I wonder how many there are down there?" said Knowlton as he unhooked the fish. "It makes me hungry."
"Catching the trout?" said Diana softly.
He nodded. "Here comes another. I wish we could make a fire somewhere hereabouts and cook them."
"Is that a good way?"
"The best in the world," he said, adjusting his fly, and then looking with a smile at her. "There is no way that fish taste so good. I used to do that, you see, in the hills round about the Academy; and I know all about it."
"We could make a fire," said Diana; "but we have no gridiron here."
"I had no gridiron there. Couldn't have carried a gridiron in my pocket if I had had one. Here's another"—
"You had not a gridiron, of course."
"Nor a pocket either."
"But did you eat the trout all alone? without bread, I mean, or anything?"
"No; we took bread and salt, and pepper and butter, and a few such things. There were generally a lot of us; or if only two or three we could manage that. The butter was the worst thing to accomplish—Here's another!"
"Such beauties!" said Diana. "Well, Mr. Knowlton, if you gettoohungry, we'll cook you one at home, you know."
"Will you?" said he. "I wish we had salt and bread here! I should like to show you how wood cookery goes, though. But I'll tell you! we'll get Mrs. Starling to let us have it out in the meadow—that won't be bad."
Diana thought of her mother's utter astonishment and disapprobation at such a proposal; and there was silence again for a few minutes, while the line hung motionless over the pool, and Diana's eyes watched it movelessly, and the liquid sweetness of the water's talk with the stones was heard,—as one hears things when the senses are strung to double keenness. Diana heard it, at least, and listened to something in it she had never perceived before; something not only sweet and liquid and musical, but in some odd sense admonitory. What did it say? Diana hardly questioned, but yet she heard,—"My peace never changes. My song never dies. Listen, or not listen, it is all the same. You may be in twenty moods in a year. In my depth of content I flow on for ever."
A slight rustling of leaves, a slight crackling of stems or branches, brought the eyes of both watchers in another direction; and before they could hear a footfall, they saw, above them on the course of the brook, a figure of a man coming towards them, and Diana knew it was the minister. Swiftly and lightly he came swinging himself along, bounding over obstacles, with a sure foot and a strong hand; till presently he stood beside them. Just then Mr. Knowlton's line was swung up with another trout. Diana introduced the gentlemen to each other.
"Fishing?" said the minister.
"We have got all there are in this place, I'm thinking," said Knowlton, shutting up his rod.
"Youhadnot, two minutes ago," said the other. "What do you judge from? It doesn't do to be so easily discouraged as that."
"Discouraged?" said Knowlton. "Not exactly. Let us see. Four, five, six—seven—eight. Eight, out of this little one pool, Mr. Masters. Do you think there are any more?"
"I always get all I can out of a thing," said the minister. And his very cheery tone, as well as his very quiet manner, seemed to say he was in the habit of getting a good deal out of everything.
"I don't know about that," answered the young officer in another tone. "Doesn't always pay. To stay too long at one pool of a brook, for instance. The brook has other pools, I suppose."
"I suppose it has," said the minister, with a manner which would have puzzled any but one that knew him, to tell whether he were in jest or earnest. "I suppose it has. But you may not find them. Or by the time you do, you may have lost your bait. Or you may be tired of fishing. Or it may be time to go home."
"I am never tired," said Knowlton, springing up; "and I have got a guide that will not let me miss my way."
"You are fortunate," said the other. "And I will not occupy your time.Good afternoon! I shall hope to see more of you."
With a warm grasp of the young officer's hand, and lifting his hat to Diana, the minister went on his way. Diana looked after him, wondering why he had not shaken hands with her too. It was something she was a little sorry to miss.
"Who is that?" Knowlton asked.
"Mr. Masters? He's our minister."
"What sort of a chap is he? Not like all the rest of them?"
"How are all the rest of them?" Diana asked.
"I declare, I don't know!" said Knowlton. "If I was to tell the truth, I should say they puzzle all my wits. See 'em in one place—and hear 'em—and you would say they thought all the business of this world was of no account, nor the pleasure of it either. See 'em anywhere else, and they are just as much of this world as you are—or as I am, I mean. They change as fast as a chameleon. In the light that comes through a church window, now, they'll be blue enough, and make you think blue's the only wear—or black; but once outside, and they like the colour that comes through a glass of wine or anything also that's jolly. One thing or the other they don't mean—that's plain."
"Which do you think they don't mean?" said Diana.
"Well, they're two or three hours in church, and the rest of the week outside. I believe what they say the rest of the time."
"I don't think Mr. Masters is like that."
"Whatishe like, then?"
"I think he means exactly what he says."
"Exactly," said the young officer, laughing; "but which part of the time, you know?"
"All times. I think he means just the same thing always."
"Must see more of him," said Knowlton. "You like him, then, MissStarling?"
Diana did like him, and it was quite her way to say what she thought; yet she did not say it. She had an undefined, shadowy impression that the hearing would not be grateful to her companion. Her reply was a very inconclusive remark, that she had not seen much of Mr. Masters; and an inquiry where Mr. Knowlton meant to fish next.
So the brook had them without interruption the rest of the time. They crept up the ravine, under the hemlock branches and oak boughs; picking their way along the rocky banks; catching one or two more trout, and finding an unending supply of things to talk about; while the air grew more delicious as the day dipped towards evening, and the light flashed from the upper tree-tops more clear and sparkling as the rays came more slant; and the brook's running commentary on what was going on, like so many other commentaries, was heard and not heeded; until the shadows deepening in the dell warned them it was time to seek the lower grounds and open fields again. Which they did, much more swiftly than the ascent of the brook had been made; in great spirits on both sides, though with a thought on Diana's part how her mother would receive the fish and the young officer's proposition. Mrs. Starling was standing at the back door of the kitchen as they came up to it.
"I should think, Diana, you knew enough to remember that we don't take visitors in at this end of the house," was her opening remark.
"How about fish?" inquired Mr. Knowlton, bringing forward his basket.
"What are you going to do with 'em?" asked Mrs. Starling, standing in the door as if she meant he should not come in.
"We are going to eat them—with your leave ma'am, and by your help;—and first we are going to cook them."
"Who?"
"Miss Starling and myself. I have promised to show her a thing. May I ask for the loan of a match?"
"A match!" echoed Mrs. Starling.
"Or two," added Mr. Knowlton, with an indescribable twinkle in his eye; indescribable because there was nothing contrary to good breeding in it. All the more, Diana felt the sense of fun it expressed, and hastened to change the scene and put an end to the colloquy. She threw down her bonnet and went for a handful of sticks. Mr. Knowlton had got his match by this time. Mrs. Starling stood astonished and scornful.
"Will this be wood enough?" Diana asked.
Mr. Knowlton replied by taking the sticks out of her hand, and led the way into the meadow. Diana followed, very quiet and flushed. He had not said a word; yet the manner of that little action had a whole small volume in it. "Nobody else ever cared whether I had sticks in my hands or not," thought Diana; and she flushed more and more. She turned her face away from the bright west, which threw too much illumination on it; and looked down into the brook. The brook's song sounded now unheard.
It was on the border of the brook that Lieut. Knowlton made his fire. He was in a very jubilant sort of mood. The fire was made, and the fish were washed; and Diana stood by the column of smoke in the meadow and looked on, as still as a mouse. And Mrs. Starling stood in the door of the lean-to and looked on too, from a distance; and if she was still, it was because she had no one near just then to whom it was safe to open her mind. The beauty of the picture was all lost upon her: the shorn meadow, the soft column of ascending smoke coloured in dainty hues from the glowing western sky, the two figures moving about it.
"Now, Miss Diana," said the young officer. "If we had a little salt, and a dish—I am afraid to go and ask Mrs. Starling for them!"
Perhaps so was she; but Diana went, and got them without asking. She smiled at the dishing of the trout, it was so cleverly done; then she was requested to sprinkle salt on them herself; and then with a satisfied air, which somehow called up a flush in Diana's cheeks again, Mr. Knowlton marched off to the house with the dish in his hands. Mrs. Starling had given her farm labourers their supper, and was clearing away relics from the board. She made no move of welcome or hospitable invitation; but Diana hastened to remove the traces of disorder, and set clean plates and cups, and bring fresh butter, and bread, and make fresh tea. How very pleasant, and how extremely unpleasant, it was altogether!
"Mother," she said, when all was ready, "won't you come and taste Mr.Knowlton's fish?"
"I guess I know how fish taste. I haven't eaten the trout of that brook all my life, without."
"But you don't know my cookery," said Mr. Knowlton; "that'ssomething new."
"I don't see the sense of doing things in an outlandish way, when you have no need to. Nor I don't see why men should cook, as long as there's women about."
"Whatisoutlandish?" inquired Mr. Knowlton.
"What you've been doing, I should say."
"Come and try my cookery, Mrs. Starling; you will never say anything against men in that capacity again."
"I never say anything against men anyhow; only against men cooking; and that ain't natural."
"It comes quite natural to me," said the young officer. "Only taste my trout, Mrs. Starling, and you will be quite reconciled to me again."
"I ain't quarrelling with nobody—fur's I know," said Mrs. Starling; "but I've had my supper."
"Well, we haven't had ours," said the young man; and he set himself not only to supply that deficiency in his own case, but to secure that Diana should enjoy and eat hers in spite of all hindrances. He saw that she was wofully annoyed by her mother's manner; it brought out his own more in contrast than perhaps otherwise would have been. He helped her, he coaxed her, he praised the trout, and the tea, and the bread, and the butter; he peppered and salted anew, when he thought it necessary, on her own plate; and he talked and told stories, and laughed and made her laugh, till even Mrs. Starling, moving about in the pantry, moved softly and set down the dishes carefully, that she too might hear. Diana sometimes knew that she did so; at other times was fain to forget everything but the glamour of the moment. Trout were disposed of at last, however, and the remainder was cold; bread and butter had done its duty; and Mr. Knowlton rose from table. His adieux were gay—quite unaffected by Mrs. Starling's determined holding aloof; and involuntarily Diana stood by the table where she could look out of the window, till she had seen him mount into his waggon and go off.
"Have you got through?" said Mrs. Starling.
"Supper?" said Diana, starting. "Yes, mother."
"Then perhaps I can have a chance now. Do you think there is anything in the world to do? or is it all done up, in the world you have got into?"
Diana began clearing away the relics of the trout supper, in silence and with all haste.
"That ain't all," said Mrs. Starling. "The house don't stand still for nobody, nor the world, nor things generally. The sponge has got to be set for the bread; and there's the beans, Diana; to-morrow's the day for the beans; and they ain't looked over yet, nor put in soak. And you'd better get out some codfish and put that on the stove. I don't know what to have for breakfast if I don't have that. You'd best go and get off your dress, first thing; that's my counsel to ye; and save washingthatto-morrow."
Diana went into no reasoning, on that subject or any other; but she managed to do all that was demanded of her without changing her dress, and yet without damaging its fresh neatness. In silence, and in an uncomfortable mute antagonism which each one felt in every movement of the other. Odd it is, that when words for any reason are restrained, the feeling supposed to be kept back manifests itself in the turn of the shoulders and the set of the head, in the putting down of the foot or the raising of the hand, nay, in the harmless movements of pans and kettles. The work was done, however, punctually, as always in that house; though Diana's feeling of mingled resentment and shame grew as the evening wore on. She was glad when the last pan was lifted for the last time, the key turned in the lock of the door of the lean-to, and she and her mother moved into the other part of the house, preparatory to seeking their several rooms. But Mrs. Starling had not done her work yet.