ed her life would be; her life
and herself; she thought the minister was getting a bad bargain of it,
but since it was his pleasure, she thought it was a good thing for her;
every time she met the gentle kind eyes and felt the warm clasp of his
hand, Diana repeated the assurance to herself. The girl had sunk again
into mental torpor; she did not see nor hear nor feel; she lived along
a mechanical sort of life, having relapsed into her former stunned
condition. Not crushed--there was too much of Diana's nature for one
blow or perhaps many blows to effect that; not beaten down, like some
other characters; she went on her way upright, alert, and strong, doing
and expecting to do the work of life to its utmost measure; all the
same, walking as a ghost might walk through the scenes of his former
existence; with no longer any natural conditions to put her at one with
them, and only conscious of her dead heart. This state of things had
given way in the fall to a few months of incessant and very live pain;
with her betrothal to the minister Diana had sunk again into the
dulness of apathy. But with a constitution mental and physical like
hers, so full of sound life-blood, so true and strong, in the nature of
things this state of apathetic sleep could not last for ever. And the
time of final waking came.

The winter had dragged its length away. Spring had come, with its
renewal of all the farm and household activities. Diana stood up to her
work and did it, day by day, with faultless accuracy, with blameless
diligence. She was too useful a helper not to be missed unwillingly
from any household that had once known her; and Mrs. Starling's temper
did not improve. It had been arranged that Diana's marriage should take
place about the first of June. Spring work over, and summer going on
its orderly way, she could be easiest spared then, she thought; and
Mrs. Starling, seeing it must be, made no particular objection. Beyond
the time, nothing had been talked of yet concerning the occasion. So it
was a hitherto untouched question, when Mrs. Starling asked her
daughter one day,--"What sort of a wedding are you calculatin' to have?"

"What sort of a wedding? I don't know," said Diana. "What do you mean
by a wedding?"

"The thing is, what _you_ mean by it. Don't be a baby, Diana Starling!
Do you mean to ask your friends to see you married?"

"I don't want anybody, I am sure," said Diana. "And I am sure Mr.
Masters does not care."

"A