ives, like what you describe?"

"I can't believe it."

"Then what purpose are we here for? Why am I, and why are you, on the
earth?"

"I don't know," said Diana faintly. The talk was not turning out well
for her wish, she thought.

"To find that out,--and to get in harmony with the answer,--is the
great secret of life."

"Will you help me, Mr. Masters?" said Diana humbly. "It is all dark and
wild to me,--I see no comfort in anything. If there were nothing better
than this, one would rather _not_ be on the earth."

Mr. Masters might have pondered with a little surprise on the strength
of the currents that flow sometimes where the water looks calm; but he
had no time, and in truth was in no mood for moralizing just then. His
answer was somewhat abrupt, though gentle as possible.

"What do you want, Miss Diana?"

But the answer to that was a choked sob, and then, breaking all bounds
of her habit and intention, a passionate storm of tears. Diana was
frightened at herself; but, nevertheless, the sudden probe of the
question, with the sympathetic gentleness of it, and the too great
contrast between the speaker's happy, calm, strong content and her own
disordered, distracted life, suddenly broke her down. Neither, if you
open the sluice-gates to such a current, can you immediately get them
shut again. This she found, though greatly afraid of the conclusions
her companion might draw. For a few minutes her passion was utterly
uncontrolled.

If Basil drew conclusions, he was not in a hurry to make them known. He
did not at that time follow the conversation any further; only
remarking cheerfully, and sympathetically too, "We must have some more
talk about this, Miss Diana; but we'll take another opportunity," and
so presently left her at her own door, with the warm, strong grasp of
the hand that many a one in trouble had learned to know. There is
strange intelligence, somehow, in our fingers. They can say what lips
fail to say. Diana went into the house feeling that her minister was a
tower of strength and a treasury of kindness.

She found company. Mrs. Flandin and her mother were sitting together.

"Hev' you come home to stay, Diana?" was her mother's sarcastic
salutation.

"How come you and the Dominie to be a ridin' together?" was the other
lady's blunter question.

"I had the chance," said Diana, "and I asked him to bring me. It's too
hot for walking."

"And how come he to be in a buggy, so convenient? He a