nning. "If 'tain't me, I don' know who
'tis. That 'ere red heifer is losin' on her milk, though, Mis'
Starlin'. She had ought to be fed sun'thin'."

"Well, feed her, then," cried the mistress. "You know enough for that.
You must keep up the milk this month, Josh; the grass is first-rate."

Diana escaped away.

A while later the family was assembled at breakfast.

"Where's the child?" inquired Mrs. Starling.

"I believe she is out in the garden, mother."

"She oughtn't to be out before she has had her breakfast. 'Tain't good
for her."

"O, she has had her breakfast," said Diana. This was nothing new. Diana
as well as her husband was glad to keep the little one from Mrs.
Starling's table, where, unless they wanted her to be fed on pork and
pickles and the like, it was difficult to have a harmonious meal. It
was often difficult at any rate!

"Who's with her?" Mrs. Starling went on.

"Her father was with her. Now Prudence is looking after her."

"Prudence! You want to keep a girl about as much as I want to keep a
boat. You have no use for her."

"She is useful just now," put in the Dominie.

"Why can't Diana take care of her own child, and feed her when she
takes her own meals?--as I used to do, and as everybody else does."

"You think that is a convenient arrangement for all parties?" said the
minister.

"I hate to have danglers about!" said Mrs. Starling. "If there's
anything I abominate, it's shiftlessness. I always found my ten fingers
was servants enough for me; and what they couldn't do I could go
without. And I don't like to see a daughter o' mine sit with her hands
before her and livin' off other people's strength!"

Diana laughed, a low, sweet laugh, that was enough to smooth away the
wrinkles out of anybody's mood.

"She has to do as she's told," said the minister sententiously.

"That's because she's a fool."

"Do you think so?" Basil answered with unchanged good humour.

"_I_ never took my lessons from anybody."

"Perhaps it would have been better if you had."

"And you are spoiling her," Mrs. Starling added inconsistently.

"I wonder you haven't."

Mrs. Starling paused to consider what the minister meant. Before she
came to speech again, he rose from the table.

"Will you come to my study, Diana, after breakfast?"

"Who's goin' to make my cake, then?" cried the mistress of the house.
"Society's to meet here again this afternoon."

"I'll make it, mother--a mountain cake, if you l