urselves into their
affections, by degrees, and _then_ the door would be open for us to
bring Christ in. We could give them help too, where help is needed."

"_We_, Basil?"

"Don't you feel as I do? You said so," he answered with a grave smile.

"O, I do!" said Diana. "I cannot think of anything lovelier than to see
those faces change with the knowledge of Christ."

"Then you would be willing to leave our present field of work?"

"It does not seem to want us as this does--not by many fold."

"Would your mother leave Pleasant Valley?"

"No."

"How, then, Di, about you?

"The first question is duty, Basil."

"I think mine is to come here."

"Then it must be mine," said Diana, with a sort of disappointment upon
her that he should speak in that way.

"And would it be your pleasure too?"

"Why, certainly. Basil, I cannot _imagine_ pleasure to be apart from
duty."

"Thank you," he said gently. "And I thank God, who has brought you so
far in your lesson-learning as to know that."

Diana said no more. She was ready to cry, with the feeling that her
husband thought himself to have so little to do with her pleasure.
Tears, however, were not much in her way, and she did not shed any, but
she speculated. _Had_ he really to do with her pleasure? It was
different certainly once. She had craved to be at a distance from him;
she could remember the time well; but the time was past. Was it
reasonable to expect him to know that fact? He had thoroughly learned
the bitter truth that her heart was not his, and could never be his;
what should tell him that the conditions of things were changed. _Were_
they changed? Diana was in great confusion. She began to think she did
not know herself. She did not hate Mr. Masters any more; nay, she
declared to herself she never had hated him; she always had liked him;
only then she had loved Evan Knowlton, and now that was gone. She did
not love anybody. There was no reason in the world why Mr. Masters
should not be contented. "I think," said Diana to herself, "I give him
enough of my heart to content him. I wonder what would content him? I
do not care two straws for anybody else in all the world. He would say,
if I told him that, he would say it is a negative proposition. Suppose
I could go further"--and Diana's cheeks began to burn--"suppose I
could, I could not possibly stand up and tell him so. I cannot. He
ought to see it for himself. But he does not. He ought to be
contented--I t