pt the housewifely
matters of practical life. So these evenings when Mrs. Starling was
ill, Diana had her lamp and her fire in the lean-to kitchen; and there
were held the long talks with Mr. Knowlton which made all the days of
September so golden,--days when Diana's hands were too busy to let her
see him, and he was told he must not come except at night; but through
all the business streamed the radiant glow of the last night's talk,
like the September sunlight through the misty air.

So the days went by; and Mrs. Starling was kept a prisoner; pain and
weakness warning her she must not dare try anything else. And in their
engrossment the two young people hardly noticed how the time flew.
People in Pleasant Valley were not in the habit of paying visits to one
another in the evenings, unless specially invited; so nobody discovered
that Evan came nightly to Mrs. Starling's house; and if his own people
wondered at his absence from home, they could do no more. Suspicion had
no ground to go upon in any particular direction.

The month had been glorious with golden leaves and golden sunshine,
until the middle was more than past. Then came a September storm; an
equinoctial, the people said; as furious as the preceding days had been
gentle. Whirlwinds of tempest, and floods of rain; legions of clouds,
rank after rank, bringing the winds in their folds; or did the winds
bring them? All one day and night and all the next day, the storm
continued; and night darkened early upon Pleasant Valley with no
prospect of a change. Diana had watched for it a little eagerly; Evan's
visit was lost the night before, of course; it was much to lose, when
September days were growing few; and now another night he could not
come. Diana stood at the lean-to door after supper, looking and making
her conclusions sorrowfully. It was darkening fast; very dark it would
be, for there was no moon. The rain came down in streams, thick and
grey. The branches of the elm trees swung and swayed pitilessly in the
wind, beating against each other; while the wind whistled and shouted
its intention of keeping on so all night. "He can't come," sighed Diana
for the fifth or sixth time to herself; and she shut the door. It could
be borne, however, to lose two evenings, when they had enjoyed so many
together, and had so many more to look forward to; and with that
mixture in her heart of content and longing, which everybody knows,
Diana trimmed her lamp and sat down to