well-trotting horses; the motion was delightful. Diana's thoughts
rolled on too. Suddenly Mr. Brandt leaned over towards her.

"Is this carriage a 'worldly' indulgence, Mrs. Masters?"

Diana started. "I don't know," she said.

"Ah," said the other, laughing at her startled face,--"I am glad to see
that even you may have a doubt on that subject. You cannot blame less
etherealized persons, like my wife and me, if we go on contentedly,
with no doubts."

"But you mistake me,"--said Diana.

"You said, you did not know."

"Because I don't know you."

"What has that to do with it?"

"If I knew you well, Mr. Brandt, I should know whether this carriage is
the Lord's or not."

The expression of the gentleman's face upon this was hardly agreeable;
he sat back in his seat and looked at the prospect; and so Diana tried
to do, but for a time the landscape to her was indistinguishable. Her
thoughts went back to the mills and the mill people; pale, apathetic,
reserved, sometimes stern, they had struck her painfully as a set of
people who did not own kindred with other classes of their
fellow-creatures; apart, alone, without instruction, without sympathy;
not enjoying this life, nor on the way to enjoy the next. The marks of
poverty were on them too, abundantly. Diana's mind was too full of
these people to allow her leisure for the beauties of nature; or if she
felt these, to let her feel them without a great sense of contrast.
Then she did not know whether she had spoken wisely. Alone in her room
at night with Basil she began to talk about it. She wished that he
would begin; but he did not, so she must.

"Basil,--did I say too much to Mr. Brandt to-day?"

"I guess not."

Diana knew by the tone of these words that her husband was on this
subject contented.

"What do you think of the mill people?"

"I am very curious to find out what impression they make on you."

"Basil," said Diana, her voice trembling, "they break my heart!"

"What's to be done in that case?"

"I don't know. Nothing follows upon that. But how do you feel?"

"Very much as if I would like to prove the realizing of that old
prophecy--'To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see; and they that
have not heard shall understand.'"

"That is just how I feel, Basil. But they do not go to church, people
say; how could you get at them?"

"We could look them up at their own homes; we could arrange meetings
for them that they would like; we could work o