ebody else at the time--not me.
If you please, I will try the bushes that way; I think somebody has
been in this place."

"Don't you remember my telling you I always want the best of
everything?" he said as he followed her; and Diana went too fast for
him to hold the briary branches out of her way.

"There are so many other people who are of that mind, Mr. Knowlton!"--

"Not yourself?"

"I want the best berries," said Diana, stopping before a cluster of
bushes heavily laden.

"How about other things?"

Diana felt a pang at her heart, an odd desire to make some wild answer.
But nothing could be cooler than what she said.

"I take them as I find them, Mr. Knowlton."

He was helping her now again.

"What did you suppose I was thinking of, when I told you I wanted the
best I could have?"

"I had no right to suppose anything. No doubt it is true of all sorts
of things."

"But I was thinking of _one_--did you guess what?"

Diana hesitated. "I don't know, Mr. Knowlton,--I might guess wrong."

"Then what made you say, 'no doubt' I could have it?"

"I don't know, Mr. Knowlton," said Diana, feeling irritated and worried
almost past her power to bear. "Don't you always have what you want?"

"Do you think I can?" he said eagerly.

"I fancy you do."

"What _did_ you think I meant by the 'best' thing, then? Tell me--do
tell me?"

"I thought you meant Miss Gertrude Masters," Diana said, fairly brought
to bay.

"You did! And what did you think I thought of Miss Diana Starling?"

He had stopped picking blackberries now, and was putting his questions
short and keenly. Diana's power of answering had come to an end.

"Hey!" said he, drawing her hand from the bush and stopping her work;
"what did you think I thought of _her?_--I have walked with her, and
driven with her, and talked with her, in the house and out of the
house, now all summer long; I have seen what she is like at home and
abroad; what do you think I think of _her?_"

Baskets and berries had, figuratively, fallen to the ground; literally
too, in Mr. Knowlton's case, for certainly both his hands were free,
and had been employed while these words were spoken in gently and
slowly gathering Diana into close bondage. There she stood now, hardly
daring to look up; yet the tone of his questions had found its way to
her inmost heart. She could not refuse one look, which they asked for.
It gave her what she never forgot to her latest day.

"Does she know