"Wall, I don' know," said Miss Collins; "to be sure, one never doos know till one is tried, they say; but if I had, I think I should ha' took 'tother one."
"I do not understand you," said Diana, walking off to the table, where she began to gather up the wrecks of the parsley stems. She felt an odd sensation of cold about the region of her heart, physically very disagreeable.
"You are hard to make understand, then," said Miss Collins. "I suppose you know you had two sweethearts, don't you? And sure enough you had the pick of the lot. 'Tain't likely you've forgotten."
"How dare you speak so?" asked Diana, not passionately, but with a sort of cold despair, eying her handmaiden.
"Dare?" said the latter. "Dare what? I ain't saying nothin'. 'Tain't no harm to have two beaux; you chose your ch'ice, and he hain't no cause to be uncontented, anyhow. About the 'tother one I don't say nothin'. I should think he was, but that's nat'ral. I s'pose he's got over it by now. You needn't stand and look. He's fur enough off, too. Your husband won't be jealous. You knowed you had two men after you."
"I cannot imagine why you say that," Diana repeated, standing as it were at bay.
"How I come to know? That's easy. Didn't I tell you I was in the post office? La, I know, I see the letters."
"Letters!" cried Diana, in a tone which forthwith made Miss Collins open all the eyes she had. It was not a scream; it was not even very loud; yet Miss Collins went into a swift calculation to find out what was in it. Beyond her ken, happily; it was a heart's death-cry.
"Yes," she said stolidly; "I said letters. Ain't much else goin' at the post office, 'cept letters and papers; and I ain't one o' them as sets no count by the papers. La, what do I care for the news at Washington? I don't know the folks; they may all die or get married for what I care; but in Pleasant Valley I know where I be, and I know who the folks be. And that's what made me allays like to get a chance to sort the letters, or hand 'em out."
"You never saw many letters of mine," said Diana, turning away to hide her lips, which she felt were growing strange. But she must speak; she must know more.