nister's house in Pleasant
Valley, there was the calm poise and grace which we associate in our
speech and thoughts with the highest advantages of social relations. So
extremes sometimes meet. In Diana it was due to her inborn nobility of
nature and the sharp discipline of sorrow; in aid of which practically
came also her perfection of physical health and form. It must be
remembered, too, that she had been now for a good while in the close
companionship of a man of great refinement and culture, and that both
study and conversation had lifted her by this time far out of the
intellectual sphere in which the beginning of our story found her.

The carpenters were going on vigorously with their work on the new
rooms adding to Mrs. Starling's house; and Diana was making, as she
could from time to time, her little preparations for the removal,
which, however, could not take place yet for some time. It was in the
beginning of July. Diana was up-stairs one day, looking over the
contents of a trunk, and cutting up pieces for patchwork. Windows were
open, of course, and the scent of new hay came in with the warm air.
Haymaking was going on all over Pleasant Valley. By and by Miss Collins
put her head in.

"Be you fixed to see folks?"

"Who wants me?"

"Well, there's somebody comin'; and I reckon it's one or other o' them
fly-aways from Elmfield."

"Here?" said Diana, starting up and trembling.

"Wall, there's one of 'em comin', I guess--I see the carriage--and I
thought maybe you warn't ready to see no one. When one gets into a
trunk it's hard to get out again. So I thought I'd jes' come and tell
ye. There she is comin' up the walk. Hurry, now."

Down went Miss Collins to let the visitor in, and Diana did hurry and
changed her dress. What can she be come for? she questioned with
herself meanwhile; for it was Mrs. Reverdy, she had seen. No good! no
good! But nobody would have guessed that Diana had ever been in a
hurry, that saw her entrance the next minute upon her visitor. That
little lady felt a sort of imposing effect, and did not quite know how
to do what she had come for.

"I always think there has come some witchery over my eyes," she said
with her invariable little laugh of ingratiation, "when I see you. I
always feel a kind of new surprise. Is it the minister that has changed
you so? What's he done?"

"Changed me?" Diana repeated.

"Why, yes; you are changed. You are not like what you were two years
ago--th