now?" he went on in a tone of mixed tenderness and
triumph, like the expression of his face. "My lily!--my Camellia
flower!--my sweet Magnolia!--whatever there is most rare, and good, and
perfect. My best of all things. Can I have the best, Di?"

Miss Gertrude Masters would have been equal to the situation, and
doubtless would have met it with great equanimity; Diana was unused to
most of the world's ways, and very new to this. She stood in quiet
dignity, indeed; but the stains of crimson on cheek and brow flushed
and paled like the lights of a sunset. All at the bottom of her deep
sun-bonnet; was Mr. Knowlton to blame if he gently pushed it back and
insinuated it off, till he had a full view?

"You know what is my 'best' now," he said. "Can I have it, Diana?"

She tried to break away from him, and on her lip there broke that
beautiful smile of hers; withal a little tremulous just then. It is
rare on a grown woman's lip, a smile so very guileless and free; mostly
it belongs to children. Yet not this smile, either.

"I should think you must know by this time," she whispered.

I suppose he did; for he put no more questions for a minute or two.

"There's one more thing," he said. "Now you know what I think of you;
what do you think of me, Diana?"

"I think you are very imprudent," she said, freeing herself resolutely,
and picking up her sun-bonnet. "Anybody might come, Mr. Knowlton."

"Anybody might! But if ever you call me 'Mr. Knowlton' again--I'll do
something extraordinary."

Diana thought he would have a great many things to teach her, beside
that. She went at her fruit-picking with bewildered haste. She did not
know what she was doing, but mechanically her fingers flew and the
berries fell. Mr. Knowlton picked rather more intelligently; but
between them, I must say, they worked very well. Ah, the blackberry
field had become a wonderful place; and while the mellow purple fruit
fell fast from the branches, it seemed also as if years had reached
their fruition and the perfected harvest of life had come. Could riper
or richer be, than had fallen into Diana's hands now? than filled them
now? So it was, she thought. And yet this was not life's harvest, only
the bloom of the flower; the fruit comes not to its maturity with one
sunny day, and it needs more than sunshine. But let the fruit grow; it
will come in time, even if it ripens in secret; and meanwhile smell the
flower. It was the fragrance of the grape blosso