ree years ago--how long is it."

"It is three years ago," said Diana, trying to smile. "I am three years
older."

"O, it isn't that. _I'm_ three years older. I suppose I didn't see
enough of you then to find you out. It was my fault. But if you had
married somebody belonging to me, I can tell you, I should have been
very proud of my sister-in-law."

She laughed at the compliment she was making, laughed lightly; while
Diana inwardly shook, like a person who has received a sudden sharp
blow, and staggers in danger of losing his footing. Did she waver
visibly before her adversary's eyes, she wondered? She was sure her
colour did not change. She found nothing to say, in any case; and after
a moment her vision cleared and she had possession of herself again.

"I am saucy," said Mrs. Reverdy, smiling, "but nobody thinks of minding
anything I say. That's the good of being little and insignificant, as I
am."

Diana was inclined to wish her visitor would not presume upon her
harmlessness.

"I should as soon think of being rude to a duchess," Mrs. Reverdy went
on; "or to a princess. I don't see how Evan ever made up his mind to go
away and leave you."

"Is it worse to be rude to a duchess than to other people?" Diana
asked, seizing the first part of this speech as a means to get over the
last.

"I never tried," said Mrs. Reverdy; "I never had the opportunity, you
know. I might have danced with the Prince of Wales, perhaps, when he
was here. I know a lady who did, and she said she wasn't afraid of
_him_. If you had been there, I am sure she would not have got the
chance."

"You forget, I am not a dancer."

"O, not now, of course--but then you wouldn't have been a minister's
wife."

"Why should not a minister's wife dance as well as other people?"

"O, I don't know!" said Mrs. Reverdy lightly; "but they never do, you
know. They are obliged to set an example."

"Of what?"

"Of everything that is proper, I suppose. Don't you feel that
everybody's eyes are upon you, always, watching everything you do?"

A good reminder! But Diana answered simply that she never thought about
it.

"Don't you! Isn't the minister always reminding you of what people will
think?"

"No. It isn't his way."

"Doesn't he? Why, without being a minister, that is what my husband
used always to be doing to me. I was a little giddy, you know," said
Mrs. Reverdy, laughing; "I was very young; and I used to have plenty of
admonitions."

"I