The drive home was as silent between her and her mother as the drive out had been. Mrs. Starling was full of her own cogitations. Diana's thoughts were not like that,--hard-twisted and hard-knotted lines of argument, growing harder and more twisted towards their end; but wide flowing and soft changing visions, flowing sweet and free as the clouds borne on the air-currents of heaven; catching such colours, and drifting as insensibly from one form into another. The evening kept up the dreamy character of the afternoon, the haze growing duskier as the light waned; till the tender gleam of a full moon began to supply here and there the glory of the lost sunlight. It was a colder gleam, though; and so far, more practical than that flush of living promise which a little while ago had filled the sky and the world. Diana's thoughts centred on Evan's letter. Where was it? When should she get it? Josiah, she knew, had been to the post office that morning, and brought home nothing! She wished she could go to the post office herself; she sometimes had done so; but she would not like to take Evan's letter, either, from the knowing hands of the postmaster. She might not be able to command her looks perfectly. "They don't know how to make soda biscuit down yonder," Mrs. Starling broke out abruptly, just as their drive was near ended. "Don't they?" said Diana absently. "All yellow!" said Mrs. Starling disdainfully. "Nobody would ever know there was any salaratus in _my_ biscuit--or in yours either." "Except from the lightness, mother." "The lightness wouldn't tell what made 'em light," said Mrs. Starling logically. "They had salaratus in their pickles too." "How could you tell?" "Tell? As if I couldn't tell! Tell by the colour." "Ours are green too." "Not green like that. I would despise to make my pickles green that way. I'd as soon paint 'em." "It was very handsome, mother, the supper altogether." "Hm! It was a little too handsome," said Mrs. Starling, "and that was what they liked about it. I'd like to know what is the use o' having great clumsy forks of make-believe silver"-- "O, they were real, mother." "Well, the more fools if they were. I'd like to know what is the use of having great clumsy forks of silver, real or make-believe, when you can have nice, sharp, handy steel ones, and for half or a quarter the price?" Diana liked the silver forks, and was silent. "I could hardly eat my pickles with 'em. I couldn't, if they had been _mine;_ but Genevieve's cucumbers were spongy." To Diana's relief, their own door was gained at this moment. She did not know what her mother's discourse might end in, and was glad to have it stopped. Yet the drive had been pretty!