"O, she has had her breakfast," said Diana. This was nothing new. Diana as well as her husband was glad to keep the little one from Mrs. Starling's table, where, unless they wanted her to be fed on pork and pickles and the like, it was difficult to have a harmonious meal. It was often difficult at any rate! "Who's with her?" Mrs. Starling went on. "Her father was with her. Now Prudence is looking after her." "Prudence! You want to keep a girl about as much as I want to keep a boat. You have no use for her." "She is useful just now," put in the Dominie. "Why can't Diana take care of her own child, and feed her when she takes her own meals?--as I used to do, and as everybody else does." "You think that is a convenient arrangement for all parties?" said the minister. "I hate to have danglers about!" said Mrs. Starling. "If there's anything I abominate, it's shiftlessness. I always found my ten fingers was servants enough for me; and what they couldn't do I could go without. And I don't like to see a daughter o' mine sit with her hands before her and livin' off other people's strength!" Diana laughed, a low, sweet laugh, that was enough to smooth away the wrinkles out of anybody's mood. "She has to do as she's told," said the minister sententiously. "That's because she's a fool." "Do you think so?" Basil answered with unchanged good humour. "_I_ never took my lessons from anybody." "Perhaps it would have been better if you had." "And you are spoiling her," Mrs. Starling added inconsistently. "I wonder you haven't." Mrs. Starling paused to consider what the minister meant. Before she came to speech again, he rose from the table. "Will you come to my study, Diana, after breakfast?" "Who's goin' to make my cake, then?" cried the mistress of the house. "Society's to meet here again this afternoon." "I'll make it, mother--a mountain cake, if you like," said Diana, also rising. "Basil won't want me all the morning." But she was eager to hear what he had to say to her, and hurried after him. He had seemed to her more than usually preoccupied. "I do think," she remarked as she reached the study, "the Society eat more cake than--their work is worth." "Heresy," said Basil, smiling. "They don't do much sewing, Basil." "They do something else. Never mind; let them come and have a good time. It won't hurt anybody much."