Diana Part 75

"There had ought to be three quarts more, that ain't here," she grumbled.

"They ain't nowheres else, then," answered her factotum.

"Josh, you don't strip the cows clean."

"Who doos, then?" said Josh, grinning. "If 'tain't me, I don' know who 'tis. That 'ere red heifer is losin' on her milk, though, Mis'

Starlin'. She had ought to be fed sun'thin'."

"Well, feed her, then," cried the mistress. "You know enough for that.

You must keep up the milk this month, Josh; the gra.s.s is first-rate."

Diana escaped away.

A while later the family was a.s.sembled at breakfast.

"Where's the child?" inquired Mrs. Starling.

"I believe she is out in the garden, mother."

"She oughtn't to be out before she has had her breakfast. 'Tain't good for her."

"O, she has had her breakfast," said Diana. This was nothing new. Diana as well as her husband was glad to keep the little one from Mrs.

Starling's table, where, unless they wanted her to be fed on pork and pickles and the like, it was difficult to have a harmonious meal. It was often difficult at any rate!

"Who's with her?" Mrs. Starling went on.

"Her father was with her. Now Prudence is looking after her."

"Prudence! You want to keep a girl about as much as I want to keep a boat. You have no use for her."

"She is useful just now," put in the Dominie.

"Why can't Diana take care of her own child, and feed her when she takes her own meals?--as I used to do, and as everybody else does."

"You think that is a convenient arrangement for all parties?" said the minister.

"I hate to have danglers about!" said Mrs. Starling. "If there's anything I abominate, it's s.h.i.+ftlessness. I always found my ten fingers was servants enough for me; and what they couldn't do I could go without. And I don't like to see a daughter o' mine sit with her hands before her and livin' off other people's strength!"

Diana laughed, a low, sweet laugh, that was enough to smooth away the wrinkles out of anybody's mood.

"She has to do as she's told," said the minister sententiously.

"That's because she's a fool."

"Do you think so?" Basil answered with unchanged good humour.

"_I_ never took my lessons from anybody."

"Perhaps it would have been better if you had."

"And you are spoiling her," Mrs. Starling added inconsistently.

"I wonder you haven't."

Mrs. Starling paused to consider what the minister meant. Before she came to speech again, he rose from the table.

"Will you come to my study, Diana, after breakfast?"

"Who's goin' to make my cake, then?" cried the mistress of the house.

"Society's to meet here again this afternoon."

"I'll make it, mother--a mountain cake, if you like," said Diana, also rising. "Basil won't want me all the morning." But she was eager to hear what he had to say to her, and hurried after him. He had seemed to her more than usually preoccupied.

"I do think," she remarked as she reached the study, "the Society eat more cake than--their work is worth."

"Heresy," said Basil, smiling.

"They don't do much sewing, Basil."

"They do something else. Never mind; let them come and have a good time. It won't hurt anybody much."

Diana looked at him and smiled, and then waited anxiously. She longed for some words from Basil different from those he had spoken last night. Could he not see, that if her pa.s.sion for Evan was broken, there was nothing left for him to look grave about? And ought he not to be jubilant over the confession she had just made to her mother? Diana was jubilant over it herself; she had set that matter clear at last. It is true, Basil had not heard the confession, but ought he not to divine it, when it was the truth? "If I do not just _love_ him," said Diana to herself, "at least he is the only one I care for in all the world. That would have made him glad once. And he don't look glad. Does he expect me to speak out and tell him all that?"

Basil did not look as if he expected her to do any such thing. He was rather graver than usual, and did not at once say anything. Through the open window came the air, still damp with dew, laden with the scent of honeysuckle and roses, jocund with the shouts of birds; and for one instant Diana's thoughts swept back away to years ago, with a wondering recognition of the change in herself since _those_ June days. Then her husband began to speak.

"I have had a call, Diana."

"A call? You have a good many of them always, Basil. What was this?"

"Of a different sort. A call for me--not a call upon me."

"Well, there have always been calls _for_ you too, in plenty, ever since I have known you. What do you mean?"

"This is a call to me to leave Pleasant Valley," said Basil, watching her, yet without seeming to do so. Diana looked bewildered.

"To leave Pleasant Valley? Why? And where would you go, Basil?"

"I am called, because the people want somebody and have pitched upon me. The place is a manufacturing town, not very far from Boston."

"Are you going?"

"That is the point upon which I desire to have your opinion."

"But, Basil, the people here want you too."

"Grant that."

"Then what does it signify, whether other people want you?"