Diana Part 82

There was a long pause, and then Diana spoke again; spoke slowly.

"Do you know, Basil, the millowners in Mainbridge seemed to me to want something done for them, quite as much as the millworkers?"

"I make the charge of that over to you."

"Me!" said Diana.

"Why not?"

"What do you want me to do for them?"

"What do you think they need?"

"Basil, they do not seem to me to have the least idea--not an _idea_--of what true religion is."

"They would be very much astonished to hear you say so."

"But is it not true?"

"You would find every wealthy community more or less like Mainbridge."

"Would I? That does not alter the case, Basil."

"No. Do you think things are different here in Pleasant Valley?"

Diana pondered. "I think they do not _seem_ the same," she said.

"People at least would not be shocked if you told them here what Christian living is. And there are some who know it by experience."

"No doubt, so there are in the Mainbridge church, though it may be we shall find them most among the poor people."

"But what is it you want me to do, Basil?"

"Show them what a life lived for Christ is. We will both show them; but in my case people lay it off largely on the bond of my profession.

Then, when we have shown them for awhile what it is, we can speak of it with some hope of being understood."

"Has anything special come to the Dominie?" Mrs. Starling asked that evening, when after prayers the minister had gone to his study.

"Why, mother?"

"He seems to have a great deal of thanksgiving on his mind!"

"That's nothing very uncommon in him," said Diana, smiling.

"What's happened to _you?_" inquired her mother next, eyeing her daughter with curious eyes.

"Why do you ask?"

"I don't do things commonly without a reason. When folks roll their words out like b.u.t.ter, I like to know what's to pay."

"I cannot imagine what manner of speech that can be," said Diana, amused.

"Well--it was your'n just now. And it was your husband's half an hour ago."

"I suppose," said Diana, gravely now, "that when people feel happy, it makes their speech flow smoothly."

"And you feel happy?" said Mrs. Starling with a look as sharp as an arrow.

"Yes, mother. I do."

"What about?"

Diana hesitated, and then answered with a kind of sweet solemnity,--"All earth, and all heaven."

Mrs. Starling was silenced for a minute.

"By 'all earth' I suppose you mean me to understand things in the future?"

"And things in the past. Everything that ever happened to me, mother, has turned out for good."

Mrs. Starling looked at her daughter, and saw that she meant it.

"The ways o' the world," she muttered scornfully, "are too queer for anything!" But Diana let the imputation lie.

They went to Mainbridge. Not Mrs. Starling, but the others. And you may think of them as happy, with both hands full of work. They live in a house just a little bit out of the town, where there is plenty of ground for gardens, and the air is not poisoned with smoke or vapour.

Roses and honeysuckles flourish as well here as in Pleasant Valley; laburnums are here too, dropping fresh gold every year; and there are banks of violets and beds of lilies, and in the spring-time crocuses and primroses and hyacinths and snowdrops; and chrysanthemums and asters, and all sorts of splendours and sweetnesses in the fall. For even Diana's flowers are not for herself alone, nor even for her children alone, whose special pleasure in connection with them is to make nosegays for sick and poor people, and to cultivate garden plots in order to have the more to give away. And not Diana's roses and honeysuckles are sweeter than the fragrance of her life which goes through all Mainbridge. Rich and poor look to that house as a point of light and centre of strength; to the poor it is, besides, a treasury of comfort. There is no telling the change that has been wrought already in the place. It is as Basil meant it should be, and knew it would be.

It is as it always is; when the box is broken at Christ's feet, the house is filled with the odour of the ointment.

THE END.