forget. But you can, can't you?"

"I never tried, Miss Masters."

"Do you know my cousin, Mr. Masters?--the minister, you know?"

"Yes, I know him a little."

"Do you like him?"

"I like him,--yes, I don't know anything against him," said Diana in
great bewilderment.

"O, but I do. Don't you know he says it is wicked to do a great many
things that we do? he thinks everybody is wicked who don't do just as
he does. Now I don't think everybody is bound to be a minister. He
thinks it is wicked to dance; and I don't care to live if I can't
dance."

"That is being very fond of it," said Diana.

"Do you dance her, in the country?"

"Sometimes; not very often."

"Isn't it very dull here in the winter, when you can't go after
blackberries?"

Diana smiled. "I never found it dull," she said. Nevertheless, the
contrast smote her more and more, between what Mr. Knowlton was
accustomed to in his world, and the very plain, humdrum, uneventful,
unadorned life she led in hers. And this elegant creature, whose very
dress was a sort of revelation to Diana in its perfection of beauty,
she seemed to the poor country girl to put at an immense distance from
Mr. Knowlton those who could not be charming and refined and exquisite
in the like manner. Her gloves,--one hand rested on Diana's arm, and
pulled a little too;--what gloves they were, for colour and fit and
make! Her foot was a study. Her hat might have been a fairy queen's
hat. And the face under it, pretty and gay and wilful and sweet, how
could any man help being fascinated by it? Diana made up her mind that
it was impossible.

The rambling path through the woods brought the party out at last upon
a wild barren hill-side, where stones and a rank growth of blackberry
bushes were all that was to be seen. Only far off might be had the
glimpse of other hills and of patches of cultivation on them; the near
landscape was all barrenness and blackberries.

"But where are the rest of the people?" said Mrs. Reverdy with her
faint laugh. "Are we alone? I don't see anybody."

"They are gone on--they are picking," Diana explained.

"Hid in this scrubby forest of bushes," said her brother.

"Have we got to go into that forest too?"

"If you want to pick berries."

"I think we'll sit here and let the rest do the picking," said Mrs.
Reverdy, looking with charming merriment at Gertrude. But Gertrude was
not so minded.

"No, I'm going after berries," she said. "Only, I don't s