"

"I hope not!" said Mrs. Starling, "for you seem to me a goose.
Cultivated! Who is cultivated, if you are not? Weren't you a whole year
at school in Boston? I guess my gentleman hasn't been to a better
place. And warn't you for ever reading those musty old books, that make
you out of kilter for all _my_ world. If you don't fit his neither, I'm
sorry. Society indeed! There's no better society than the folks of
Pleasant Valley. Don't you go and set yourself up; nor him neither."

Diana knew better than to carry on the discussion.

Meanwhile the grey horse that bore the minister home kept up that long
smooth gallop for a half mile or so, then slackened it to walk up a
hill.

"That's a very remarkable girl," the minister was saying to himself;
"with much more in her than she knows."

The gallop began again in a few minutes, and was unbroken till he got
home. It was but a piece of a home. Mr. Masters had rooms in the house
of Mrs. Persimmon, a poor widow living among the hills. The rooms were
neat; that was all that could be said for them; little and dark and
low, with bits of windows, and with the simplest of furnishing. The
sitting-room was cheerful with books, however--as cheerful as books can
make a room; and the minister did not look uncheerful, but very grave.
If his brow was neither wrinkled nor lined, the quiet eyes beneath it
were deep with thought. Mr. Masters' morning was spent on this wise.

First of all, for a good half hour, his knees were bent, and his
thoughts, whatever they were, gave him work to do. That work done, the
minister threw himself on his bed and slept, as quietly as he did
everything else, for an hour or two more. Then he rose, shaved and
dressed, took such breakfast as Mrs. Persimmon could give him; mounted
his grey again, and was off to a house at some distance where there was
a sick child, and another house where there dwelt an infirm old man.
Between these two the hours were spent till he rode home to dinner.

CHAPTER III.

HARNESSING PRINCE.

The improvement of the sick girl was better than had been hoped; it was
but a day or two before Mrs. Starling's heart's desire could be
effected and her kitchen cleared. Eliza was moved to another room, and
at the week's end was taken home.

It was the next day after this had been done; and Diana was sitting
again in the elm shadow at the door of the lean-to. Not idly this time;
for a pan of peas was in her lap, and her fingers