"Might as well be down as up," said Mrs. Starling. "Can't get well lying in bed. I'm tired to death with it all these days; and last night I couldn't sleep half the night; seemed to me I heard all sorts of noises. If I'd had a light I'd ha' got up then. I thought the house was coming down about my ears; and if it was, I'd rather be up to see." "The wind blew so." "You heard it too, did you? When did you come down, Diana? I hain't heard the first sound of your door. 'Twarn't light, was it?" "I have been up a good while. But you are not fit to do the least thing, mother. I was going to bring you your breakfast." "If there's a thing I hate, it's to have my meals in bed. I don't want anything, to begin with; and I can take it better here. What have you got, Diana? You may make me a cup of tea. I don't feel as though I could touch coffee. What's the use o' _your_ gettin' up so early?" "I've all to do, you know, mother." "No use in burning wood and lights half the night, though. The day's long enough. When did you bake?" Diana answered this and several other similar household questions, and got her mother a cup of tea. But though it was accompanied with a nice bit of toast, Mrs. Starling looked with a dissatisfied air at the more substantial breakfast her daughter was setting on the table. "I never could eat slops. Diana, you may give me some o' that pork. And a potato." "Mother, I do not believe it is good for you." "Good for me? And I have eat it all my life." "But when you were well." "I'm well enough. Put some of the gravy on, Diana. I'll never get my strength back on toasted chips." The men came in, and Mrs. Starling held an animated dialogue with her factotum about farm affairs; while Diana sat behind her big coffee-pot--not the one she had used last night, and wondered if that was all a dream; more sadly, if she should ever dream again. And why her mother could not have staid in her room one day more. One day more!-- "He hain't begun to get his ploughing ahead," said Mrs. Starling, as the door closed on the delinquent. "What, mother?" Diana asked, starting. "Ploughing. You haven't kept things a-going, as I see," returned her mother. "Josiah's all behind, as usual. If I could be a man half the time, I could get on. He ought to have had the whole west field ploughed, while I've been sick." "I don't know so much about it as you do, mother." "I know you don't. You have too much readin' to do. There's a pane of glass broken in that window, Diana." "Yes, mother. I know it." "How did it come?" "I don't know." "You'll never get along, Diana, till you know everything that happens in your house. You aren't fit anyhow to be a poor woman. If you're rich, why you can get a new pane of glass, and there's the end of it. I'm not so rich as all that comes to." "Getting a pane of glass, mother?" "Without knowing what for." "But how does it help the matter to know what for? The glass must be got anyway."