The winter had dragged its length away. Spring had come, with its renewal of all the farm and household activities. Diana stood up to her work and did it, day by day, with faultless accuracy, with blameless diligence. She was too useful a helper not to be missed unwillingly from any household that had once known her; and Mrs. Starling's temper did not improve. It had been arranged that Diana's marriage should take place about the first of June. Spring work over, and summer going on its orderly way, she could be easiest spared then, she thought; and Mrs. Starling, seeing it must be, made no particular objection. Beyond the time, nothing had been talked of yet concerning the occasion. So it was a hitherto untouched question, when Mrs. Starling asked her daughter one day,--"What sort of a wedding are you calculatin' to have?" "What sort of a wedding? I don't know," said Diana. "What do you mean by a wedding?" "The thing is, what _you_ mean by it. Don't be a baby, Diana Starling! Do you mean to ask your friends to see you married?" "I don't want anybody, I am sure," said Diana. "And I am sure Mr. Masters does not care." "Are you going to be married in a black gown?" "Black! No; but I do not care what kind of a gown it is, further than that." "I don't think you care much about the whole thing," said Mrs. Starling, looking at her. "If I was you, I wouldn't be married just to please somebody else, without it pleased myself too. That's what _I_ think." Poor Diana thought of Mr. Masters' face as she had seen it the last time; and it seemed to her good to give somebody else pleasure, even if pleasure were gone and out of the question for her. This view of the question, naturally, she did not make public. "What _are_ you going to marry this man for?" said Mrs. Starling, standing straight up (she had been bending over some work) and looking hard at her daughter. "I hope he'll make a good woman of me," Diana said soberly. "If you had a little more spunk, you might make a good man of him; but you aren't the woman to do it. He wants his pride taken down a bit." "But what about the day, mother?" said Diana, who preferred not to discuss this subject. "Well, if you haven't thought of it, I have; and I'm going to ask all the folks there are; and we've got to make a spread for 'em, Diana Starling, so we may as well be about it." "Already!" said Diana. "It's weeks yet." "They'll run away, you'll find; and the cake'll be better for keepin'. You may go about stonin' the fruit as soon as you're a mind to."