"Wall, there's one of 'em comin', I guess--I see the carriage--and I thought maybe you warn't ready to see no one. When one gets into a trunk it's hard to get out again. So I thought I'd jes' come and tell ye. There she is comin' up the walk. Hurry, now." Down went Miss Collins to let the visitor in, and Diana did hurry and changed her dress. What can she be come for? she questioned with herself meanwhile; for it was Mrs. Reverdy, she had seen. No good! no good! But nobody would have guessed that Diana had ever been in a hurry, that saw her entrance the next minute upon her visitor. That little lady felt a sort of imposing effect, and did not quite know how to do what she had come for. "I always think there has come some witchery over my eyes," she said with her invariable little laugh of ingratiation, "when I see you. I always feel a kind of new surprise. Is it the minister that has changed you so? What's he done?" "Changed me?" Diana repeated. "Why, yes; you are changed. You are not like what you were two years ago--three years ago--how long is it." "It is three years ago," said Diana, trying to smile. "I am three years older." "O, it isn't that. _I'm_ three years older. I suppose I didn't see enough of you then to find you out. It was my fault. But if you had married somebody belonging to me, I can tell you, I should have been very proud of my sister-in-law." She laughed at the compliment she was making, laughed lightly; while Diana inwardly shook, like a person who has received a sudden sharp blow, and staggers in danger of losing his footing. Did she waver visibly before her adversary's eyes, she wondered? She was sure her colour did not change. She found nothing to say, in any case; and after a moment her vision cleared and she had possession of herself again. "I am saucy," said Mrs. Reverdy, smiling, "but nobody thinks of minding anything I say. That's the good of being little and insignificant, as I am." Diana was inclined to wish her visitor would not presume upon her harmlessness. "I should as soon think of being rude to a duchess," Mrs. Reverdy went on; "or to a princess. I don't see how Evan ever made up his mind to go away and leave you." "Is it worse to be rude to a duchess than to other people?" Diana asked, seizing the first part of this speech as a means to get over the last. "I never tried," said Mrs. Reverdy; "I never had the opportunity, you know. I might have danced with the Prince of Wales, perhaps, when he was here. I know a lady who did, and she said she wasn't afraid of _him_. If you had been there, I am sure she would not have got the chance." "You forget, I am not a dancer." "O, not now, of course--but then you wouldn't have been a minister's wife." "Why should not a minister's wife dance as well as other people?" "O, I don't know!" said Mrs. Reverdy lightly; "but they never do, you know. They are obliged to set an example." "Of what?"