as musing about another waggonful, and wondering
whereabouts it was. Till at a turn of the road she discerned behind
them, at some distance, a vehicle coming along, and knew, with a jump
of her heart, the colour of the horse and the figure of the driver.
Even so far off she was sure of them, and turned her sun-bonnet to look
straight forward again, hoping that her mother might not by any chance
give a look back. She did not herself again; but Diana's ears were
watching all the while after that for the sound of hoofs or wheels
coming near; and her eyes served her to see nothing but what was out of
her field of vision. The scenery grew by degrees rough and wild;
cultivation and civilisation seemed as they went on to fall into the
rear. A village, or hamlet, of miserable, dirty, uncomely houses and
people, was passed by; and at last, just as the morning was wakening up
into fervour, Mrs. Starling drew rein in a desolate rough spot at the
edge of a woodland. The regular road had been left some time before,
since when only an uncertain wheel track had marked the way. Two or
three farm waggons already stood at the place of meeting; nobody was in
them; the last comer was just hitching his horse to a tree.

"Here's Mis' Starling," he called out. "Good day! good-day to 'ye. Hold
on, Mis' Starling--I'll fetch him up. Goin' to conquer all Bear Hill,
ain't ye, with all them pails and kettles? Wall--blackberries ain't
ripe but once in the year. I've left all _my_ business to attend upon
the women folks. What's blackberries good for, now, when you've got
'em?"

"Don't you like a blackberry pie, Mr. Selden?"

"Bless you!" said the farmer, "I kin live without it; but my folks
can't live 'thout comin' once a year to Bear Hill. It is a wonder to me
why things warn't so ordered as that folks could get along 'thout
eatin'. It'd save a sight o' trouble. Why, Mis' Starlin', we're workin'
all the time to fill our stomachs; come to think of it, that's pretty
much what life is fur. Now I'll warrant you, they'll have a spread by
and by, that'll be worth all they'll get here to-day."

"Who's come, Mr. Selden?"

"Wall, they ain't all here yet, I guess; my folks is up in the lot,
hard to work, I s'pose. Mis' Seelye's gals is here; and Bill Howe and
his wife; and the Delamaters; that's all, I guess. He's safe now, Mis'
Starlin'."

This last remark had reference to the horse, which farmer Selden had
been taking out of the shafts and tethering,