Diana Part 51

"To see me cry?" said Diana. "I don't know why I cried."

"I think I do. Don't you feel better for it?"

"Yes. Or else, for that which made me do so. Come down, Basil."

At tea she was perfectly herself and quite as usual, except for the different expression in her face. It was hardly less grave than before, but something dark had gone out and something light had come in.

"I can face the Sewing Society now," she remarked towards the end of the meal.

"The Sewing Society!" her husband echoed. "Is that much to face?"

"I have not been once since I was married. And they make so much fuss about it, I must go now. They meet to-morrow at mother's."

"What do they sew?"

"They pretend to be making up a box for some missionary out west."

"I guess there is no pretence about it."

"Yes, there is. They have been eight months at work upon a box to go to Iowa somewhere, to a family very much in want of everything; and the children and mother are almost, or quite, I guess, in rags, and the ladies here are comfortably doing a little once a week, and don't even expect to have the box made up till Christmas time. Think of the people in Iowa waiting and waiting, with hardly anything to put on, while we meet once a week and sew a little, and talk, and have supper."

"How would you manage it?"

"I would send off the box next week, Basil."

"So would I. Suppose now we do?"

"Send off a box?"

"Yes. I will give you the money;--you can go--I will drive you--down to Gunn's, and you can get there whatever you think would be suitable, and we will have the fun to ourselves."

The colour flushed into Diana's face; it was the first flush of pleasure that had come there in a long while.

"You are very good, Basil!" she said. "Don't you think I could drive Saladin?"

"Where?"

"Anywhere. I mean, that I could go to places then without troubling you to drive me."

"I can stand so much trouble. It is not good for a man to live too easy."

"But it might be convenient for you sometimes."

"So it might, and pleasant for you. No, I should not like to trust you to Saladin. I wonder if your mother would let me have Prince, if I offer her a better horse in exchange. Perhaps I can do better than that. We will see."

"O, Basil, you must not get another horse for me!"

"I will get anything I like for you."

"But do you mean, and keep Saladin too?"

"I mean that. Saladin is necessary to me."

"Then don't, Basil. I can tell you, people will say you are extravagant if you have two horses."

"I cannot help people talking scandal."

"No; but it will hurt your influence."

"Well, we will feel the pulse of the public to-morrow. But I think they would stand it."

They drove down to Mrs. Starling's the next day. Mr. Masters had other business, and must go farther. Diana went in alone. She was early, for she had come to help her mother make the preparations; and at first these engrossed them both.

"Well," said Mrs. Starling, when some time had pa.s.sed,--"how do you get along with your husband?"

Diana's eyes opened slightly. "It would be a very strange person that could not get on with Mr. Masters," she answered.

"Easy, is he? I hate easy men! The best of 'em are helpless enough; but when you get one of the easy soft, they are consented if every door hangs on one hinge."

Diana made no answer.

"How does your girl get along?"

"Very well. Pretty well."

"What you want with a girl, I don't see."

"I didn't either. But Mr. Masters wants me to do other things."

"Set you up to be a lady! Well, the world's full o' fools."

"I am as busy, mother, as ever I was in my life."

"Depends on what you call business. Making yourself unfit for business, I should say. Call it what you like. I suppose he is your humble servant, and just gives you your own way."

"He is not that sort of man at all, mother. He is as kind as he can be; but he is n.o.body's humble servant."

"Then I suppose you are his. There is somebody now, Diana; it's Kate Boddington. Do go in and take care of her,--you can do so much,--and keep her from coming out here where I am."

"Well, Di!" exclaimed her relative as Diana met her. "Ain't it a sight to see _you_ at the sewin' meetin'! Why haven't you been before? Seems to me, you make an uncommon long honeymoon of it."

Diana's natural sweetness and dignity, and furthermore, the great ballast of old pain and new gladness which lay deep down in her heart, kept her quite steady and unruffled under all such breezes. She had many of the like to meet that day; and the sweet calm and poise of her manner through them all would have done honour to the most practised woman of the world. Most of her friends and neighbours here collected had scarce seen her since her marriage, unless in church; and they were curious to know how she would carry herself, and curious in general about many things. It was a sort of battery that Diana had to face, and sometimes a masked battery; but it was impossible to tell whether a shot hit.

"What I want to know," said Mrs. Boddington, "is, where the minister and you made it up, Di. You were awful sly about it!"

"Ain't that so?" chimed in Mrs. Carpenter. "I never had no notion o'

what was goin' on--not the smallest idee; and I was jest a sayin' one day to Miss Gunn, or somebody--I declare I don't know now who 'twas, I was so dumbfounded when the news come, it took all my memory away;--but I was jes' a sayin' to somebody, and I remember it because I'd jes'

been after dandelion greens and couldn't find none; they was jest about past by then, and bitter; and we was a settin' with our empty baskets; and I was jes' tellin' somebody, I don't know who 'twas, who I thought would make a good wife for the minister; when up comes Mrs. Starling's Josiah and reaches me the invitation. 'There!' says I; 'if he ain't a goin' to have Diana Starling!' I was beat."