Warm, how good and warm! but empty. Perfectly empty. Perfectly still. Empty pews, and empty pulpit; nobody, not a head visible anywhere. Not a breath to be heard. The place was awful; it was like the ghost of a church; all the life out of it. But how, then, came it to be warm? Somebody must have made the fires; where was somebody gone? And had none of all the congregation come to church that day? was it too bad for everybody? Diana began to wake up to facts, as she heard the blast drive against the windows, and listened to the swirl of it round the house. And how was she going to get home, if it was so bad as that? At any rate, here was still solitude and quiet and freedom; she could get warm and enjoy it for awhile, and let Prince rest; she would not be in a hurry. She turned to go to one of the corners of the room, where the stoves were screened off by high screens in the interest of the neighbouring pews; and then, just at the corner of the screen, from where he had been watching her, she saw Mr. Masters. Diana did not know whether to be sorry or glad. On the whole, she rather thought she was glad; the church was eerie all alone. "Mr. Masters!--I thought nobody was here." "I thought nobody was going to be here. Good morning! Who else is coming?" "Who else? Nobody, I guess." "How am I to understand that?" "Just so,"--said Diana, coming up to the stove and putting her fingers out towards the warmth. "Where is the other half of your family?" "I left mother at home." "You came alone?" "Yes, I came alone." Diana began to wonder a little at the situation in which she found herself, and to revolve in her mind how she could make use of it. "Miss Diana, you have dared what no one else has dared." "It was not daring," said the girl. "I did not think much of the storm, till I was so far on the way that it was as easy to come on as to go back." A light rejoinder, which would have been given to anybody else, was checked on Mr. Masters' lips by the abstracted, apart air with which these words were spoken. He gave one or two inquisitive glances at the speaker, and was silent. Diana roused herself. "Has nobody at all come to church?" "Nobody but Mr. St. Clair"--(he was the old sexton.) "And he has such a bad cold that I took pity on him and sent him home. I promised him I would shut up the church for him--when it was necessary to leave it. _He_ was in no condition to be preached to." He half expected Diana would propose the shutting up of the church at once, and the ensuing return home of the two people there; but instead of that, she drew up a stool and sat down. "You will not be able to preach to-day," she remarked. "Not to much of a congregation," said the minister. "I will do my best with what I have." "Are you going to preach to me?" said Diana, with a ghost of a smile. "If you demand it! You have an undoubted right."