"Yes. I mean Pleasant Valley," said the minister, smiling. "Not the house where I first saw you. There are one or two sick people, from whom I do not feel that I can be long away." "You always think of other people first!" said Diana, almost with a sigh. "So do you." "No, I do not. I do not think I do. It seems to me I have always thought most of myself." "You can begin now, then, to do better." "In thinking of you first, you mean? O yes, I do. I will. But you think of people you do not care for." "No, I don't. Never. You cannot think of people you do not care for, in the way you mean. They will not come into your head." "How can one do then, Basil? How do _you_ do?" "Obviously, the only way is to care for them." "Who is sick in Pleasant Valley?" "Nobody you know. One is an old man who lives back on the mountain; the other is a woman near Blackberry hill." "Blackberry hill? do you go _there?_" "Now and then." "But those are dreadful people there." "Well," said the minister, "they want help so much the more." "Help to live, do you mean? They do stealing enough for that." "Nobody _lives_ by stealing," said the minister. "It is one of the ways of death; and help to live is just what they want. But 'how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher'?" "And do you _preach_ to them in that place?" "I try." "But there is no church there?" "When you have got anything to do," said the minister, with a dry sort of humourousness which belonged to him, "it is best not be stopped by trifles." "Where do you preach, then, Basil?" "Wherever I can find a man or a woman to listen to me." "In the houses?" exclaimed Diana. "Why not?" "Well, we never had a minister in Pleasant Valley like you before." "Didn't you?" "I don't believe anybody ever went to those people to preach to them, until you went." "They had a good deal of that appearance," Mr. Masters assented. "But," Diana began again after a short pause, "to go back; Basil, you do not _care_ for those people?" "I think I do," said the minister very quietly. "I suppose you do!" said Diana, in a sort of admiration. "But how can you?" "Easy to tell," was the answer. "God made them, and God loves them; I love all that my Father loves. And Christ died for them; and I seek the lost whom my Master came to save. And there is not one of them but has in him the possibility of glory; and I see that possibility, and when I see it, Diana, it seems to me a small thing to give my life, if need be, that it may be realized." "I am not good enough to be your wife!" said Diana, sinking her head. And her secret self-abasement was very deep. "Does that mean, that you object to the cutting short of our holiday?" the minister asked, in his former tone of dry humourous suggestion. "I?" said Diana, looking up and meeting his eyes. "No, certainly. I am ready for whatever you wish, and whenever you wish."