rned; and no young mother's hands ever touched
more tenderly the little pink bundle committed to them, nor ever any
mother's eyes hung more intently over her wonderful new possession. But
lift the burden from Diana's heart her baby did not. There was
something awful about it, too, for it was another bond that bound her
to a man she did not love. When Diana was strong enough, she sometimes
shed floods of tears over the little unconscious face, the only human
confident she dared trust with her secret. Before this time her tears
had been few; something in the baby took the hardness from her, or else
gave one of those inexplicable touches to the spring of tears which we
can neither resist nor account for. But the baby's father was as fond
of her as her mother, and had a right to be, Diana knew; and that tried
her. She grudged Basil the right. On the whole, I think, however, the
baby did Diana good As for Basil, it did him good. He thanked God, and
took courage.

The summer had begun when Diana was able to come down-stairs again. One
afternoon she was there, in her little parlour, come down for a change.
The windows were open, and she sat thinking of many things. Her
easy-chair had been moved down to this room; and Diana, in white, as
Basil liked to see her, was lying back in it, close beside the window.
June was on the hills and in the air, and in the garden; for a bunch of
red roses stood in a glass on the table, and one was fastened at
Diana's belt and another stuck in her beautiful hair. Not by her own
hands, truly; Basil had brought in the roses a little while ago and
held them to her nose, and then put one in her hair and one in her
belt. Diana suffered it, all careless and unknowing of the exquisite
effect, which her husband smiled at, and then went off; for his work
called him. She had heard his horse's hoof-beats, going away at a
gallop; and the sound carried her thoughts back, away, as a little
thing will, to a time when Mr. Masters used to come to her old home to
visit her mother and her, and then ride off so. Yes, and in those clays
another came too; and June days were sweet then as now; and roses
bloomed; and the robins were whistling then also, she remembered; did
_their_ fates and life courses never change? was it all June to them,
every year? How the robins whistled their answer!--"all June to them,
every year!" And the smell of roses did not change, nor the colour of
the light; and the fresh green of the you