want to
know if this is what folks call work or play? 'cause if it's play, I'd
rather work, for my part. I believe I'd sooner stand at the wash-tub."

"Than pick blackberries, mother?"

"Well, yes," said Mrs. Starling; "'cause _then_ I'd know when my work
was done. If the sun hadn't gone down, we'd all be pickin' yet."

"I am sure, you could stop when you were tired, mother; couldn't you?"

"I never am tired, child, while I see my work before me; don't you know
that? And it's a sin to let the ripe fruit go unpicked. I wonder what
it grows in such a place for! Who were you with all day?"

"Different people."

"Did Will Flandin find you?"

"Yes."

"He was in a takin' to know where you were. So I just gave him a bit of
a notion."

"I don't see how _you_ could know, mother; I had been going so
roundabout among the bushes. I don't know where I was, myself."

"When ever you don't know that, Diana, stop and find out."

Mrs. Starling was sitting before the stove in a resting attitude, with
her feet stretched out towards it. Diana was busy with some odds and
ends, but her mother's tone--or was it her own consciousness?--made her
suddenly stop and look towards her. Mrs. Starling did not see this,
Diana being behind her.

"Did it ever strike you that Will was sweet on you?" she went on.

"Will Flandin, mother?"

An inarticulate note of assent.

Diana did not answer, and instead went on with what she had been doing.

"Hey?" said Mrs. Starling.

"I hope he'll get cured of it, mother, if he is."

"Why?"

"I don't know why," said Diana, half laughing, "except that he had
better be sweet on some one else."

"He's a nice fellow."

"Yes, I think he is; as they go."

"And he'll be very well off, Diana."

"He's no match for me, then, mother; for I am well off now."

"No, you ain't, child," said Mrs. Starling. "We have enough to live on,
but that's all."

"What more does anybody want?"

"You don't mean what you say, Diana!" cried her mother, turning upon
her. "Don't you want to have pretty things, and a nice house, and
furniture to suit you, and maybe servants to do your work? I wonder
who's particular, if you ain't! Wouldn't you like a nice carriage?"

"I like all these things well enough, mother; but they are not the
first thing."

"What is the first thing?" said Mrs. Starling shortly.

"I should say,--how I get them."

"Oh!--I thought you were going to say the man was the first thing.
That's the