"Mother, how do I know? I didn't keep count."
"Didn't keep count, eh?" Mrs. Starling repeated. "Must have been frequent company, I judge. Diana, you mind what I told you?"
Diana made no answer.
"You shall have nothing to do with him," Mrs. Starling went on. "You never shall. You sha'n't take up with any one that holds himself above me. I'll be glad when his time's up; and I hope it'll be long before he'll have another. Once he gets away, he'll think no more of you, that's one comfort."
Diana knew that was not true; but it hurt her to have it said. She could stand no more of her mother's talk; she left her and went off to the dairy, till Mrs. Starling crept up-stairs again. Then Diana came and opened the lean-to door and looked out for a breath of refreshment. The morning was going on its way in beauty. Little clouds drifted over the deep blue sky; the mellow September light lay on fields and hills; the long branches of the elm swayed gently to and fro in the gentle air that drove the clouds. But oh for the wind and the storm of last night, and the figure that stood beside her before the chimney fire! The gladsome light seemed to mock her, and the soft breeze gave her touches of pain. She shut the door and went back to her work.
CHAPTER XIII.
FROM THE POST OFFICE.
Mrs. Starling's room was like her; for use, and not for show, with some points of pride, and a general air of humble thrift. A patchwork quilt on the bed; curtains and valance of chintz; a rag carpet covering only part of the floor, the rest scrubbed clean; rush-bottomed chairs; and with those a secretary bureau of old mahogany, a dressing-glass in a dark carved frame, and a large oaken press. There were corner cupboards; a table holding work and work-basket; a spinning-wheel in a corner; a little iron stove, but no fire. Mrs. Starling lay down on her bed, simply because she was not able to sit up any longer; but she was scarcely less busy, in truth, than she had been down-stairs. Her eyes roamed restlessly from the door to the window, though with never a thought of the sweet September sunlight on the brilliant blue sky.
"Diana's queer this morning," she mused. "Yes, she was queer. What made her so mum? She was not like herself. Sailing round with her head in the clouds. And a little bit blue, too; what Diana never is; but she was to-day. What's up? I've been lying here long enough for plenty of things to happen; and she's had the house to herself. Knowlton has been here—she owned that; well, either he has been here too often, or not often enough. I'll find out which. She's thinkin' about him. Then that coffee—was it coffee, last night? I could have sworn to it; just the smell of fresh, steaming coffee. I didn't dream it. She wasn't surprised, either; she had nothing to say about it. She would have laughed at it once. And the ashes in the chimney! There's been a sight o' wood burned there, and just burned, too; they lay light, and hadn't been swep' up. There's mischief! but Diana never shall go off with that young feller; never; never! Maybe she won't have Will Flandin; but she sha'n't have him."
Mrs. Starling lay thinking and staring out of her window, till she felt she could go down-stairs again. And then she watched. But Diana had put every possible tell-tale circumstance out of the way. The very ashes were no longer where her mother could speculate upon them; pies and cakes showed no more suspiciously-cut halves or quarters; she had even been out to the barn, and found that Josiah, for reasons of his own, was making the door-latch and hinges firm and fast. It was no time now, to tell her mother her secret. Her heart was too sore to brave the rasping speech she would be certain to provoke. And with a widely different feeling, it was too rich in its prize to drag the treasure forth before scornful eyes. For this was part of Diana's experience, she found; and the feeling grew, the feeling of being rich in her secret possession; rich as she never had been before; perhaps the richer for the secresy. It was all hers, this beautiful, wonderful love that had come to her; this share in another person's heart and life; her own wholly; no one might intermeddle with her joy; she treasured it and gloated over it in the depths of her glad consciousness.