that either. O, _begin?_ I think the beginning was very
long ago, when I learned to honour you so thoroughly."

"Honour is very cold work; don't talk to me about honour," said Basil.
"I have fed and supped on honour, and felt very empty!"

"Well, you have had it," said Diana contentedly.

"Go on. When did it change into something else?"

"It has not changed," said Diana mischievously.

"When did you begin to give me something better?"

"Do you know, Basil, I cannot tell? I was not conscious myself of what
was going on in me."

"When?"

"Perhaps--since soon after I came home from Clifton. It _had_ not begun
then; how soon it began after, I cannot tell. It was so gradual."

"When did you discover a change?"

"I _felt_ it--I hardly discovered it--a good while ago, I think. But I
did not in the least know what it was. I wished--Basil, it is very
odd!"--and the colour rose in Diana's cheeks,--"I _wished_ that I could
love you."

The minister smiled, and there was a suspicious drop in his eyes, which
I think to hide, he stooped and kissed Rosy.

"Go on. When did you come to a better understanding?"

"I don't think I recognised it until--I told mother, not a great while
ago, that I cared for nobody in the world but you; but that was
different; I meant something different; I do not think I recognised it
fully, until--you will think me very strange--until I saw--Evan
Knowlton."

"And then?" said Basil with a quick look at his wife. Diana's eyes were
dreamily going out of the window, and her lips wore the rare smile
which had vexed Evan, and which he himself had never seen on them
before that day.

"Then,--he ventured to remind me that--once--it was not true."

"What?" said Basil, laughing. "Your mother makes very confused
statements, Rosy?"

"He was mortified, I think, that I did not seem to feel more at seeing
him; and then he dared to remind me that I had married a man I did
not"--Diana left the word unspoken.

"And then?"

"Then I knew all of a sudden that he was mistaken; that if it had been
true once, it was true no longer. I told him so."

"Told him!" echoed her husband.

"I told him. He will make that mistake no more."

"Then, pray, why did you not tell the person most concerned?"

"I could not. I thought you must find it out of yourself."

"How did he take your communication?"

"Basil--human nature is a very strange thing! I think, do you know?--I
think he was sorry."

"Poor fellow!" sa