"Evan," said Diana after a minute's thought, "if you are to be so long away, there is no need to speak to anybody about our affair just now. It is our affair; let it stay so. It is our secret. I should like it much better to keep it a secret. I don't want to hear people's talk. Will you?" "But our letters, my dear; they will tell your mother." "Mother will not see mine. And she is not likely to see yours; I shall go to the post office myself. If she did, and found it out, I could keep _her_ quiet easily enough. She would not want to speak, any more than I." Evan combated this resolution for some time. He wished to have Diana friends with his sisters and at home at Elmfield. But Diana had her own views, and desired so strongly to keep her secret to herself, during the first part at least of what threatened to be a long engagement, that at last he yielded. It did not matter much to him, he said, away off in the wilds. So that subject was dismissed; and before the fantasia of the flames they sat and composed a fantasia of life for themselves; as bright, as various, as bewitching, as evanishing; the visions of which were mingled with the leaping and changing purple and flame tints, the sparkle and the flash of the fire. Diana could never stand before a fire of hickory logs and fail to see her life-story reappear as she had seen it that night. The hours went by. "It's too bad to keep you up so, my darling!" Evan remarked. "I am selfish." "No indeed! But you must want something, Evan! I had forgotten all about it."