ester. I received it there, and that is only ten
miles. I rode Saladin over a few days ago, and drove him back. I had
ordered the set of harness sent with the rockaway. Ecco!"

"Echo?" said Diana. "Where?"

"A very sweet echo," said the minister, smiling. "Didn't you hear it?"

"No. But Basil, do you mean that this carriage is yours?"

"No; it is yours."

"Mine! then you have bought it! Didn't it cost a great deal?"

"I thought not. If you like it, certainly not."

"O, Basil, you are very good!" said Diana humbly. "But indeed I do not
want you to go to any expense, ever, for me."

"I am not a poor man, Diana."

"Aren't you? I thought you were."

"What right had you to think anything about it?"

"I thought ministers were always poor."

"I am an exception, then."

"And--Basil--you never acted like a rich man."

"I am not going to, Di. Do you want to act like a rich woman?"

Spite of her desperate downheartedness, Diana could not help laughing a
little at his manner.

"I do not wish anything different from you," she answered.

"It is best for every reason, if you would use money to advantage in a
place like this, not to make a show of it. And in other places, if you
would use it to advantage, you _cannot_ make a show of it. So it comes
to the same thing. But short of that, Di, we can do what we like."

"I know what you like,"--she said.

"I shall find out what you like. In the first place, where do you think
you are going?"

"Where? I never thought about it. I suppose to Mrs. Persimmon's."

"I don't think you would like that. The place was not exactly pleasant;
and the house accommodations did very well for me, but would not have
been comfortable for you. So I have set up housekeeping in another
locality. Do you know where a woman named Cophetua lives?"

"I never heard of her."

"Out of your beat. She lives a little off the road to the Blackberry
Hill. I have taken her house, and put a woman in it to do whatever you
want done."

"I? But we never kept help, since I can remember, Basil; not house
help."

"Well? That proves nothing."

"But I don't need anybody--I can do all that we want."

"You will find enough to do."

Mr. Masters quickened the pace of his horse, and Diana sat back in the
carriage, half dismayed. She longed to lose herself in work, and she
wished for nothing less than eyes to watch her.

It was almost evening when they got home. The place was, as Mr. Masters
had said, ou