"You do not think such discrimination is confined to children?" said Basil, with a dry, quiet humourousness at which Diana could not help smiling, though she felt quite as much like a very different demonstration. She watched the two, as Basil walked on to his study-table and sat down, with the child on his knee; she saw the upturned eye of love with which the little one regarded him as he did this, and then how, with a long breath of satisfaction, she settled herself in her place, smoothed down her frock, and laid the little hands contentedly together in her lap. Basil drew his portfolio towards him and began to write a letter. Diana went to her work again in the window, feeling restless. She felt she must say something more, and in a different key, and as she worked she watched the two at the table. This was not the way things ought to be. Her husband must be told at least something of the change that had taken place in her; he ought to know that she was no longer miserable; he would be glad to know that. Diana thought he might have seen it without her telling; but if he did not, then she must speak. He had a right to so much comfort as she could give him, and he ought to be told that she was not now wishing to be in another presence and society than his. If she could tell him without his thinking too much--she watched till the letter was written and he was folding it up. And then Diana's tongue hesitated unaccountably. "Basil," she began, obliging herself to speak,--"I can smell the roses again." He looked up instantly with keen eyes. "You know--there was a long while--a long while--in which I could not feel that anything was sweet." "And now?"-- "Now I can. I knew you ought to know. You would be glad. I am like a person who has been in a brain fever--or dead--and awaked to life and soundness again. You cannot think what it is to me to see the sky." Diana's eyes filled. "What did you use to see?" "The vault of my prison. What signified whether it were blue or brazen? But now"-- "Well?--Now, Diana?" "I can see through." Perhaps this was not very intelligible, for manifestly it was not easy for Diana to explain herself; but Basil this time did not speak, and she presently began again. "I mean,--there is no prison vault, nor any prison any more; the walls that seemed to shut me in are dissolved, and I am free again." "And you can see through?"--Basil repeated. "Yes. Where my eyes were met by something harder than fate,--it is all broken up, and light, and clear, and I can see through." "I never used to think you were a fanciful woman," said the minister, eyeing her intently, "but this time I do not quite follow you, Di. I am afraid to take your words for all they may mean." "But you may." "What may I?" "They mean all I say." "I am sure of that," said he, smiling, though he looked anxious; "but, you see, there is the very point of my difficulty."