Diana

"O, I have all my father's books," said Diana. "My father was a minister, Mr. Masters; and when he died his books came to me."

"A theological library!" said Mr. Masters.

"Yes. I suppose you would call it so."

"Have you it here?"

"Yes. I have it in my room up-stairs. All one end of the room full."

"Do you read these books?"

"Yes. They are all I have to read. I have not read the whole of them."

"No, I suppose not. Do you not find this reading rather heavy?"

"I don't know. Some of the books are rather heavy; I do not read those much."

"You must let me look at your library some day, Miss Diana. It would be certain to have charms for me; and I'll exchange with you. Perhaps I have books that you would not find heavy."

Diana's full grey eyes turned on the minister with a gleam of gratitude and pleasure. Her words were not needed to say that she would like that kind of barter.

"So your father was a clergyman?" Mr. Masters went on.

"Yes. Not here, though. That was when I was quite little. We lived a good way from here; and I remember very well a great many things about all that time, till father died, and then mother came back here."

"Came back, – then your mother is at home in Pleasant Valley?"

"O, we're both at home here – I was so little when we came; but mother's father lived where Nick Boddington does, and owned all this valley – I don't mean Pleasant Valley, but all this hollow; a good large farm it was; and when he died he left mother a nice piece of it, with this old house."

"Mr. Boddington, – is he then a relation of yours?"

"No, not exactly; he's the son of grandpa's second wife; we're really no relations, but we call each other cousin. Grandpa left the most of his land to his wife; but mother's got enough to manage, and nice land."

"It's a beautiful place!" said the minister. "There is a waggon coming; I wonder if any of our friends have forgotten something? That is – yes, that is farmer Babbage's team; isn't it? What is the matter?"

For something unusual in the arrangements of the vehicle, or the occupants of it, was dimly yet surely to be discerned through the distance and the light, which was now turning brown rather than grey. Nothing could be seen clearly, and yet it came as no waggon load had gone from that door that evening. The minister took his hand from the gate, and Diana stepped forward, as the horses stopped in front of the lean-to; and a voice called out:

"Who's there to help? Hollo! Lend a hand."

The minister sprang down the road, followed by Diana. "What do you want help for?" he asked.

"There's been an accident – Jim Delamater's waggon – we found it overturned in the road; and here's Eliza, she hasn't spoke since. Have you got no more help?"

"Where's Jim?" asked Mrs. Starling, coming herself from the lean-to.

"Staid with his team; about all he was up to. Now then, – can we get her in? Where's Josiah?"

But no more masculine help could be mustered than what was already on hand. Brains, however, can do much to supplement muscular force. The minister had a settee out from the house in two minutes and by the side of the waggon; with management and care, though with much difficulty, the unconscious girl was lifted down and laid on the settee; and by the aid of the women carried straight into the lean-to, the door of which was the nearest. There, by the same energetic ordering, well seconded by Diana, a mattress was brought and laid on the long table, which Mrs. Starling's diligence had already cleared since supper; and there they placed the girl, who was perfectly helpless and motionless in their hands.

"There is life yet," said the minister, after an examination during which every one stood breathless around. "Loose everything she has on, Miss Diana; and let us have some hartshorn, Mrs. Starling, if you have got any. Well, brandy, then, and cold water; and I'll go for the doctor."

But Mr. Babbage represented that he must himself 'go on hum,' and would pass by the doctor's door; so if the minister would stay and help the women folks, it would be more advisable. Accordingly the farmer's waggon wheels were soon heard departing, and the little group in the lean-to kitchen were left alone. Too busy at first to think of it, they were trying eagerly every restorative and stimulant they could think of and command; but with little effect. A little, they thought; but consciousness had not returned to the injured girl, when they had done all they knew how to do, and tried everything within their reach. Hope began to fade towards despair; still they kept on with the use of their remedies. Mrs. Starling went and came between the room where they were and the stove, which stood in some outside shed, fetching bottles of hot water; I think, between whiles, she was washing up her cups and saucers; the other two, in the silence of her absences, could feel the strange, solemn contrasts which one must feel, and does, even in the midst of keener anxieties than those which beset the watchers there. The girl, a fair, rather pretty person, pleasant-tempered and generally liked, lay still and senseless on the table round which she and others a little while ago had been seated at supper. Very still the room was now, that had been full of voices; the smell of camphor and brandy was about; the table was wet in one great spot with the cold water which had been applied to the girl's face. And through the open door and windows came the stir of the sweet night air, and the sound of insects, and the gurgle of a brook that ran a few yards off; peaceful, free, glad, as if all were as it had been last night, or nature took no cognizance of human affairs. The minister had been very active and helpful; bringing wood and drawing water and making up the fire, as well as anybody, Mrs. Starling said afterwards; he had taken his part in the actual nursing, and better than anybody, Diana thought. Now the two stood silent and grave by the long table, while they still kept up the application of brandy to the face and heat to the extremities, and rubbing the hands and wrists of the patient.

"Did you know Miss Delamater well?" asked the minister.

"Yes – as I know nearly all the girls," Diana answered.

"Do you think she is ready for the change – if she must make it?"

Diana hesitated. "I never heard her speak on the subject," she said.

"She wasn't a member of the church."

Silence followed, and they were two grave faces still that bent over the table; but there was the difference between the shadow on a mountain lake where there is not a ripple, and the dark stir of troubled waters. Diana's eye every now and then glanced for an instant at the face of her companion; it was very grave, but the broad brow was as quiet as if all its questions were answered, and the mouth was sweet and at rest in its stillness. She wished he would speak again; there was something in him that provoked her curiosity. He did speak presently.

"This shows us what the meaning of life is," he said.

"No," said Diana, "it doesn't – to me. It is just a puzzle, and as much a puzzle here as ever. I don't see what the use of life is, or what we all live for; I don't see what it amounts to."

"What do you mean?" asked her companion, but not as if he were startled, and Diana went on.

"I shouldn't say so if people were always having a good time, and if they were just right and did just right. But they are not, Mr. Masters; you know they are not; even the best of them, that I see; and things like this are always happening, one way or another. If it isn't here, it is somewhere else; and if it isn't one time, it is another; and it is all confusion. I don't see what it all comes to."

"That is the thought of a moment of pain," said the minister.

"No, it is not," said Diana. "I think it often. I think it all the while. Now this very afternoon I was sitting at the door here, – you know what sort of a day it has been, Mr. Masters?"

"I know. Perfect. Just June."

"Well, I was looking at it, and feeling how lovely it was; everything perfect; and somehow all that perfection took a kind of sharp edge and hurt me. I was thinking why nothing in the world was like it, or agreed with it; nothing in human life, I mean. This afternoon, when the company was here and all the talk going on —that was like nothing out of doors all the while; and this is not like it."

There was a sigh, deep drawn, that came through the minister's lips; then he spoke cheerfully – "Ay, God's works have parted company somehow."

"Parted – ?" said Diana curiously.

"Yes. You remember surely that when he had made all things at first, he beheld them very good."

"Well, they are not very good now; not all of them."

"Whose fault is that?"

"I know," said Diana, "but that does not help me with my puzzle. Why does the world go on so? what is the use of my living, or anybody's? What does it amount to?"

"That's your lesson," the minister answered, with a quick glance from his calm eyes. Not a bit of sentiment or of speculative rhapsody there; but downright, cool common sense, with just a little bit of authority. Diana did not know exactly how to meet it; and before she had arranged her words, they heard wheels again, and then the doctor came in.

The doctor approved of what had been done, and aided in renewed application of the same remedies. After a time, these seemed at last successful; the girl revived; and the doctor, after administering a little tea and weak brandy and water, ordered that she should be kept quiet where she was, the room be darkened when daylight came on, the windows kept open, and handkerchiefs wet with cold water be laid on her head. And then he took his departure; and Diana went to communicate to her mother the orders he had left.

"Keep her there!" echoed Mrs. Starling. "In the lean-to! She'd be a deal better in her bed."