"Yes, you, my child."
"Pardon me, mother," she went on, with a certain tremor in her voice, "but I do not understand you."
Mrs. Black sighed.
"Yes," she murmured, "and so it ever must be; a moment arrives when young girls have unconsciously a secret from their mothers."
The poor lady wiped away a tear; Diana rose quickly, and throwing her arms tenderly round her mother—
"A secret? I, a secret from you, mother? Oh, how could you suppose such a thing?"
"Child!" Mrs. Black replied, with a smile of ineffable kindness, "a mother's eye cannot be deceived;" and putting her finger on her daughter's palpitating heart, she said, "your secret is there."
Diana blushed, and drew back, confused.
"Alas!" the good lady continued, "I do not address reproaches to you, poor dear and well-beloved child. You unconsciously submit to the laws of nature; I too, at your age, was as you are at this moment, and when my mother asked my secret, like you, I replied that I had none, for I was myself ignorant of that secret."
The girl hid her face, all bathed in tears, in her mother's breast. The latter gently moved the flowing locks of light hair which covered her daughter's brow, and giving her a kiss, said, with that accent which mothers alone possess—