you think the Lord made you--you pretty creatur!"--said the old
lady, softly passing her hand down the side of Diana's face,--"for
nothin' better than to make cheese and butter?"

Diana smiled and blushed brightly at her old friend, a lovely child's
smile.

"I may come to be married, you know, one of these days! But after all,
_that_ don't make any difference. It's the same thing, married or not
married. People all do the same things, day after day, till they die."

"If that was all"--said the old lady meditatively, looking into the
fire and knitting slowly.

"It _is_ all; except that here and there there is somebody who knows
more and can do something better; I suppose life is something more to
them. But they are mostly men."

"Edication's a fine thing," Mrs. Bartlett went on in the same manner;
"but there's two sorts. There's two sorts, Diana. I hain't got
much,--o' one kind; I never had no chance to get it, so I've done
without it. And now my life's so near done, it don't seem much matter.
But there's the other sort, that ain't learned at no 'cademy. The Lord
put me into _his_ school forty-four years ago--where he puts all his
children; and if they learn their lessons, he takes 'em up and
up,--some o' the lessons is hard to learn,--but he takes 'em up and up;
till life ain't a puzzle no longer, and they begin to know the language
o' heaven, where his courts be. And that's edication that's worth
havin',--when one's just goin' there, as I be."

"How do you get into that school, Mother Bartlett?" Diana asked
thoughtfully, and yet with her mind not all upon what she was saying,

"You are in it, my dear. The good Lord sends his lessons and his
teachers to every one; but it's no use to most folks; they won't take
no notice."

"What 'teachers'?" said Diana, smiling.

"There's a host of them," said Mrs. Bartlett; "and of all sorts. Why, I
seem to be in the midst of 'em, Diana. The sun is a teacher to me every
day; and the clouds, and the air, and the colours. The hill and the
pasture ahint the house,--I've learned a heap of lessons from 'em. And
I'm learnin' 'em all the time, till I seem to be rich with what they're
tellin' me. So rich, some days I 'most wonder at myself. No doubt, to
hear all them voices, one must hear the voice o' the Word. And then
there's many other voices; but they don't come just so to all. I could
tell you some o' mine; but the ones that'll come to you'll be sure to
be different; so you co