speak, any more
than I."

Evan combated this resolution for some time. He wished to have Diana
friends with his sisters and at home at Elmfield. But Diana had her own
views, and desired so strongly to keep her secret to herself, during
the first part at least of what threatened to be a long engagement,
that at last he yielded. It did not matter much to him, he said, away
off in the wilds.

So that subject was dismissed; and before the fantasia of the flames
they sat and composed a fantasia of life for themselves; as bright, as
various, as bewitching, as evanishing; the visions of which were
mingled with the leaping and changing purple and flame tints, the
sparkle and the flash of the fire. Diana could never stand before a
fire of hickory logs and fail to see her life-story reappear as she had
seen it that night.

The hours went by.

"It's too bad to keep you up so, my darling!" Evan remarked. "I am
selfish."

"No indeed! But you must want something, Evan! I had forgotten all
about it."

He said he wanted nothing, but her; however, Diana's energies were
roused. She ran into the back kitchen, and came from thence with the
tea-kettle in her hands, filled. She was not allowed to set it down, to
be sure, but under her directions it was bestowed in front of the
glowing coals. Then, with noiseless, rapid movements, she brought a
little table to the hearth and fetched cups and plates. And then she
spread the board. There was a cold ham on the big table; and round
white slices of bread, such as cities never see; and cake, light and
fruity; and yellow butter; and a cream pie, another dainty that
confectioners are innocent of; and presently the fragrance of coffee
filled the old lean-to to the very roof. Evan laughed at her, but
confessed himself hungry, and Diana had it all her own way. For once,
this rare once, she would have the pleasure, she and Evan alone; many a
day would come and go before she might have it again. So she thought as
she poured coffee upon the cream in his cup. And whether the pleasure
or the pain were the keenest even then, I cannot tell; but it was one
of those minutes when one chooses the pleasure, and will have it and
will taste it, whatever lies at the bottom of the draught. The small
hours of night, the fire-lit kitchen, the daintily-spread table, she
and Evan at opposite sides of it; the pleasure of ministering, such as
every woman knows; the beauty of her bread, the magnificence of her
coffe