Diana. Warner Susan
And next year it'll be the same thing; and the next year after that. It don't amount to anything."
"And do you think the Lord made you – you pretty creatur!" – said the old lady, softly passing her hand down the side of Diana's face, – "for nothin' better than to make cheese and butter?"
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.
"It's nat'ral," said Mrs. Bartlett.
"I can't help your seeming so to me."
"That ain't nat'ral, for you had ought to know better. They think, folks does, – I know, – I'm a poor lone old woman, just going to die."
"But isn't that nearly true?" said Diana gently.
There was a slight glad smile on the withered lips as Mrs. Bartlett turned towards her.
"You have the book there on your lap, dear. Just find the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John, and read the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth verses. And when you feel inclined to think that o' me agin, just wait till you know what they mean."
Diana found and read: —
"'Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whoesoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.'"
CHAPTER V.
MAKING HAY
June had changed for July; but no heats ever withered the green of the Pleasant Valley hills, nor browned its pastures; and no droughts ever stopped the tinkling of its rills and brooks, which rolled down, every one of them, over gravelly pebbly beds to lose themselves in lake or river. Sun enough to cure the hay and ripen the grain, they had; and July was sweet with the perfume of hayfield, and lovely with brown hayricks, and musical with the whetting of scythes. Mrs. Starling's little farm had a good deal of grass land; and the haying was proportionally a busy season. For haymakers, according to the general tradition of the country, in common with reapers, are expected to eat more than ordinary men, or men in ordinary employments; and to furnish the meals for the day kept both Mrs. Starling and her daughter busy.
It was mid-afternoon, sunny, perfumed, still; the afternoon luncheon had gone out to the men, who were cutting then in the meadow which surrounded the house. Diana found her hands free; and had gone up to her room, not to rest, for she was not tired, but to get out of the atmosphere of the kitchen and breathe a few minutes without thinking of cheese and gingerbread. She had begun to change her dress; but leisure wooed her, and she took up a book and presently forgot even that care in the delight of getting into a region of thought. For Diana's book was not a novel; few such found their way to Pleasant Valley, and seldom one to Mrs. Starling's house. Her father's library was quite unexhausted still, its volumes took so long to read and needed so much thinking over; and now she was deep in a treatise more solid and less attractive than most young women are willing to read. It carried her out of the round of daily duties and took her away from Pleasant Valley altogether, and so was a great refreshment. Besides, Diana liked thinking.
Once or twice a creak of a farm waggon was heard along the road; it was too well known a sound to awake her attention; then came a sound far less common – the sharp trot of a horse moving without wheels behind him. Diana started instantly and went to a window that commanded the road. The sound ceased, but she saw why; the rider had reined in his steed and was walking slowly past; the same rider she had expected to see, with the dark uniform and the soldier's cap. He looked hard at the place; could he be stopping? The next moment Diana had flown back to her own room, had dropped the dress which was half off, and was arraying herself in a fresh print; and she was down-stairs almost as soon as the visitor knocked. Diana opened the door. She knew Mrs. Starling was deep in supper preparations, mingled with provisions for the next day's lunches.
Uniforms have a great effect, to eyes unaccustomed to them. How Lieut. Knowlton came to be wearing his uniform in the country, so far away from any post, I don't know; perhaps he did. He said, that he had nothing else he liked for riding in. But a blue frock, with gold bars across the shoulders and military buttons, is more graceful than a frieze coat. And it was a gracious, graceful head that was bared at the sight of the door-opener.
"You see," he said with a smile, "I couldn't go by! The other day I was your pensioner, in kindness. Now I want to come in my own character, if you'll let me."
"Is it different from the character I saw the other day?" said Diana, as she led the way into the parlour.
"You did not see my character the other day, did you?"
"I saw what you showed me!"
He laughed, and then laughed again; looking a little surprised, a good deal amused.
"I would give a great deal to know what you thought of me."
"Why would you?" Diana said, quite quietly.
"That I might correct your mistakes, of course."
"Suppose I made any mistakes," said Diana, "you could only tell me that you thought differently. I don't see that I should be much wiser."
"I find I made a mistake about you!" he said, laughing again, but shaking his head. "But every person is like a new language to those that see him for the first time; don't you think so? One has to learn the signs of the language by degrees, before one can read it off like a book."
"I never thought about that," said Diana. "No; I think that is true of some people; not everybody. All the Pleasant Valley people seem to me to belong to one language. All except one, perhaps."
"Who is the exception?" Mr. Knowlton asked quickly.
"I don't know whether you know him."
"O, I know everybody here – or I used to."
"I was thinking of somebody who didn't use to be here. He has only just come. I mean Mr. Masters."
"The