Diana smiled and blushed brightly at her old friend, a lovely child's smile.
"I may come to be married, you know, one of these days! But after all, that don't make any difference. It's the same thing, married or not married. People all do the same things, day after day, till they die."
"If that was all"—said the old lady meditatively, looking into the fire and knitting slowly.
"It is all; except that here and there there is somebody who knows more and can do something better; I suppose life is something more to them. But they are mostly men."
"Edication's a fine thing," Mrs. Bartlett went on in the same manner; "but there's two sorts. There's two sorts, Diana. I hain't got much,—o' one kind; I never had no chance to get it, so I've done without it. And now my life's so near done, it don't seem much matter. But there's the other sort, that ain't learned at no 'cademy. The Lord put me into his school forty-four years ago—where he puts all his children; and if they learn their lessons, he takes 'em up and up,—some o' the lessons is hard to learn,—but he takes 'em up and up; till life ain't a puzzle no longer, and they begin to know the language o' heaven, where his courts be. And that's edication that's worth havin',—when one's just goin' there, as I be."
"How do you get into that school, Mother Bartlett?" Diana asked thoughtfully, and yet with her mind not all upon what she was saying,
"You are in it, my dear. The good Lord sends his lessons and his teachers to every one; but it's no use to most folks; they won't take no notice."
"What 'teachers'?" said Diana, smiling.
"There's a host of them," said Mrs. Bartlett; "and of all sorts. Why, I seem to be in the midst of 'em, Diana. The sun is a teacher to me every day; and the clouds, and the air, and the colours. The hill and the pasture ahint the house,—I've learned a heap of lessons from 'em. And I'm learnin' 'em all the time, till I seem to be rich with what they're tellin' me. So rich, some days I 'most wonder at myself. No doubt, to hear all them voices, one must hear the voice o' the Word. And then there's many other voices; but they don't come just so to all. I could tell you some o' mine; but the ones that'll come to you'll be sure to be different; so you couldn't learn from them, child. And folks thinks I'm a lonesome old woman!"
"Well, how can they help it?" said Diana.