sters?--a thousand miles?--or
two thousand? I declare I have no idea. But love laughs at distances,
they say."

"Is Cupid a contractor on this road?" inquired the minister gravely.

"A contractor!" exclaimed Mrs. Reverdy, laughing, "oh, dear, what a
funny idea! I never thought of putting it so. But I didn't know but
Miss Starling could tell us."

"Do you know anything about it, Miss Diana?" asked the minister.

"About what?"

"Why Lieutenant Knowlton is not here this afternoon?"

Diana knew that several pairs of eyes were upon her. It was a dangerous
minute. But she had failed to discern in Mrs. Reverdy or in Gertrude
any symptom of more than curiosity; and curiosity she felt she could
meet and baffle. It was impertinent, and it was unkind. So, though her
mind was at a point which made it close steering, she managed to sheer
off from embarrassment and look amused. She laughed in the eyes that
were watching her, and answered carelessly enough to Mr. Masters'
question that she "dared say Mr. Knowlton would have come if he could."
Mrs. Starling put up her work with a sigh of relief; and the rest of
the persons concerned felt free to dismiss the subject from their minds
and pay attention to the supper.

It was a great success, Mrs. Reverdy's sewing party. The excellent
entertainment provided was heartily enjoyed, all the more for the
little stimulus of curiosity which hung about every article and each
detail of the tea-table. Old Mr. Bowdoin delighted himself in
hospitable attentions to his old neighbours, and was full of genial and
gratified talk with them. The stiffness of the afternoon departed
before the tea and coffee; and when at last the assembly broke up, and
a little file of country waggons drove away, one after another, from
the door, it was with highly gratified loads of people.

Diana may be quoted as a single exception. In the tremor of her spirits
which followed the bit of social navigation noticed above, she had
hardly known how anything tasted at the supper; and the talk she had
heard without hearing. There was nothing but relief in getting away.

The drive home was as silent between her and her mother as the drive
out had been. Mrs. Starling was full of her own cogitations. Diana's
thoughts were not like that,--hard-twisted and hard-knotted lines of
argument, growing harder and more twisted towards their end; but wide
flowing and soft changing visions, flowing sweet and free as the clouds
borne o