e don't know
how."

"I don't see any sense in that," rejoined Mrs. Starling. "One fashion's
as good as another. Anyhow, there's better-lookin' folks in Pleasant
Valley than ever called themselves Bowdoin, or Knowlton either. So be
as smart as you can, Diana. I guess you needn't be ashamed of yourself."

Diana thought of nothing less. Indeed she thought little about her
appearance. While she was putting on her bright chintz dress, there was
perhaps a movement of desire that she might seem pleasant in the eyes
of Evan's people--something that _he_ need not be ashamed of; but her
heart was too full of richer thoughts to have much room for such as
these. For Evan had chosen her; Evan loved her; the secret bond between
them nothing on earth could undo; and any day now that first letter of
his might arrive, which her eyes were bright only to think of looking
upon. Poor Diana! that letter was jammed up within the bones of Mrs.
Starling's stays.

CHAPTER XIV.

A MEETING AT ELMFIELD.

It was one of the royal days of a New England autumn; the air clear and
bracing and spicy; the light golden and glowing, and yet softened to
the dreamiest, richest, most bounteous aureole of hope, by a slight
impalpable haze; too slight to veil anything, but giving its tender
flattery to the landscape nevertheless. And through that to the mind.
Who can help but receive it? Suggestions of waveless peace, of endless
delight, of a world-full glory that must fill one's life with riches,
come through such a light and under such a sky. Diana's life was full
already; but she took the promise for all the years that stretched out
in the future. The soft autumn sky where the clouds were at rest,
having done their work, bore no symbol of the storms that might come
beneath the firmament; the purple and gold and crimson of nature's gala
dress seemed to fling their soft luxury around the beholder, enfolding
him, as it were, from all the dust and the dimness and the dullness of
this world's working days for evermore. So it was to Diana; and all the
miles of that long drive, joggingly pulled along by Prince, she rode in
a chariot of the imagination, traversing fields of thought and of
space, now to Evan and now with him; and in her engrossment spoke never
a word from the time she mounted into the waggon till they came in
sight of Elmfield. And Mrs. Starling had her own subjects for thought,
and was as silent on her part. She was thinking all the