"I have enjoyed it more than I can tell," Diana said, looking up again. "Yes, yes; but that isn't the thing. I know you enjoy it. But do you think it is making you fat?" "I don't need that," said Diana, smiling. "I am fat enough." "You won't be, if you go on losing as you have done since you came. Now I agree with you that I don't think that is Clifton air. What is it?" Diana could not reply. She was startled and troubled. She knew the fact was true. "Basil won't like it if I let this go on; and I don't mean it shall. Is anything the matter between you and him?" "What do you mean?" Diana asked, to gain time. "You know what I mean. I spoke plain. Have you and he had any sort of a quarrel or disagreement?" "Certainly not!" "Certainly _not?_--then why aren't you happy?" "Why do you ask me?" said Diana. "Why should you question my being happy?" "I've got eyes, child; inconvenient things, for they see. You look and act like a marble woman; only that you are not cold, and that you move about. Now, that isn't your nature. What spell has come over you?" "You know, Mrs. Sutphen," Diana answered with calmness, "there are many things that come up in the world to try one and trouble one; things one cannot help, and that one must bear." "I know that, as well as you do. But a woman with the husband you have got, ought never to be petrified by anything that comes to her. In the first place, she has no cause; and in the second place, she has no right." There was such an instant assent of Diana's inner nature to at least the latter of these assertions, that after a minute or two's pause she said very simply-- "Thank you, That is true." "He's rather fond of you, isn't he?" the old lady asked with a well-pleased look at her beautiful neighbour. "Yes. Too much," said Diana, sighing. "Can't be too much, as I see, if only you are equally fond of him; it is bad to have inequality in that matter. But, my dear, whatever you do, don't turn into marble. There's fire at the heart of the earth, folks say, but it don't do us much good in winter." With this oracular statement Mrs. Sutphen closed her lecture. She had said enough. Diana spent half that night and all the next day in a quite new set of meditations.