t you. Can't you help Miss Starling along, till we get out of the
woods?"

"Isn't it very impertinent of him to call me Gatty?" said the little
beauty, tossing her long locks and speaking in a half aside to Diana.
"Now he would like that I should return the compliment and call him
Evan; but I won't. What do _you_ do, when men call you by your
Christian name?"

She was trying to read Diana as she spoke, eyeing her with sidelong
glances, and as they went, laying her daintily gloved hand on Diana's
arm to help herself along. Diana was astounded both at her confidence
and at her request for counsel; but as to meet the request would be to
return the confidence, she was silent. She was thinking, too, of the
elegant little boot Mrs. Reverdy had displayed, and contrasting it with
her own coarse shoes. And how very familiar these two were, that he
should speak to her by her first name so!

"Miss Starling!" cried the other lady behind her,--"do you know we have
been following your lead all the way we were coming this morning?"

"Mr. Knowlton said so," Diana replied, half turning.

"Aren't you very much flattered?"

This time Diana turned quite, and faced the two.

"My mother was driving, Mrs. Reverdy."

"Ah?" said the other with a very amused laugh. "But you could have done
it just as well, I suppose."

What does she mean? thought Diana.

"Can you do anything?" inquired the gay lady on her arm. "I am a
useless creature; I can only fire a pistol, and leap a fence on
horseback, and dance a polka. What can you do? I dare say you are worth
a great deal more than me. Can you make butter and bread and pudding
and pies and sweetmeats and pickles, and all that sort of thing? I dare
say you can."

"I can do that."

"And all I am good for is to eat them! I can do that. Do you make
cheeses too?"

"I can. My mother generally makes the cheese."

"O, but I mean you. What do people do on a farm? women, I mean. I know
what the men do. You know all about it. Do you have to milk the cows
and feed everything?--chickens and pigs, you know, and all that?"

"The men milk," said Diana.

"And you have to do those other things? Isn't it horrid?"

"It is not horrid to feed the chickens. I never had anything to do with
the pigs."

"O, but Evan says you know how to harness horses."

Does he? thought Diana.

"And you can cut wood?"

"Cut wood!" Diana repeated. "Did anybody say I could do that?"

"I don't know--Yes, I think so. I