t him to the Military Academy; of course he
could not help being in the army. It is no fault of his."

"He could quit it, I suppose, if he wanted to. But he ain't that sort.
He just likes to wear gold on his shoulders, and a stripe down his leg,
and fancy buttons, and go with his coat flying all open to show his
white shirt. I think, when folks have a pair of such broad shoulders,
they're meant to do some work; but he'll never do none. He'll please
himself, and hold himself up high over them that _does_ work. And he'll
live to die poor. I. won't have you take after such a fellow, Diana;
mind, I won't. I won't have _you_ settin' yourself up above your mother
and despisin' the ways you was brought up to. And I want you to be
mistress o' Will Flandin's house and lands and money; and you can, if
you're a mind to."

Diana was a little uncertain between laughing and crying, and thought
best not to trust her voice. So they went up to their rooms and
separated for the night. But all inclination to tears was shut out with
the shutting of her door. Was not the moonlight streaming full and
broad over all the fields, filling the whole world with quiet radiance?
So came down the clear, quiet illumination of her happiness upon all
Diana's soul. There was no disturbance; there was no shadow; there was
no wavering of that full flood of still ecstasy. All things not in
harmony with it were hidden by it. That's the way with moonlight.

And the daylight was sweeter. Early, Diana always saw it; in those
prime hours of day when strength, and freshness, and promise, and
bright hope are the speech and the eye-glance of nature. How much help
the people lose who lose all that! When the sun's first look at the
mountains breaks into a smile; when morning softly draws off the veil
from the work there is to do; when the stir of the breeze speaks
courage or breathes kisses of sympathy; and the clear blue sky seems
waiting for the rounded and perfected day to finish its hours, now just
beginning. Diana often saw it so; she did not often stop so long at her
window to look and listen as she did this morning. It was a clear,
calm, crisp morning, without a touch of frost, promising one of those
mellow, golden, delicious days of September that are the very ripeness
of the year; just yet six o'clock held only the promise of it. Like her
life! But the daylight brought all the vigour of reality; and last
night was moonshine. Diana sat at her window a few m