would have rebelled at even the most delicate help. No man can save his brother. Those who want help most are those who will not accept, who cannot get it, whose wants are as far removed from the ken of the helpful by natural independence or by ignorance as if there were no help-givers in the world. Her own feelings even were to herself the strangest commentary upon her sincere desire to be of use to her fellow-creatures. This was a joke, a piece of self-indulgence, not noble neighbourliness, such as it was in Diana to do if need were. She laughed at herself and her banker’s letter, and the little show of violence with which she had insisted on its acceptance. Who could tell how near at hand and in what imminent need might be the other whom to save Diana would have strained every nerve? And how blind and poor and miserable is human nature, which cannot clear up even these initial difficulties! She went on sighing before the smile had died off her face, feeling amid all her power and capabilities how limited and how poor! CHAPTER III. TO ITALY. “I did not think Diana had been such a fool,” was the remark of Mrs. Hunstanton, when the arrangement was proposed to her. She made no objection to the joint journey. The invalid boy for whom they travelled, and in whom all her hopes were concentrated, was on the whole a fatiguing companion, dear as he was both to father and mother; and as Mrs. Norton was one of the women who are utterly beyond fatigue in the amusement of children, there was compensation for the risk of being bored by the helplessness of the two little women. But that Miss Trelawny should carry her “infatuation” about these trifling persons to the length of sending them off like an anxious mother because the girl had a cough, filled her with an angry surprise. If she had a cough, what had Diana to do with it? She had an aunt of her own to look after her, and they had, Mrs. Hunstanton supposed, enough to live on, or what business had they there at Diana’s table meeting the best people in the county? Her unaccountable fondness for them irritated her friend. What could she see in such commonplace persons? for indeed the mixture of amusement and habit and indulgence in Diana’s affection was incomprehensible to Mrs. Hunstanton, who either was fond of people or disliked them, and disapproved of such complications of feeling. To tell the truth, the Nortons themselves took Diana’s kindness as proof of a deep and absorbing love, and asked each other, with a gentle complacency, what they had done to make her so fond of them. “Not that I should wonder at _any one_ being fond of you, my darling,” the aunt said; a sentiment which the niece echoed warmly, both putting Diana’s love down to the credit of the other. Diana herself smiled a little when they talked to her of her love. Yes; she supposed she was fond of them in a way, poor little souls! and she laughed at the indignation of Mrs. Hunstanton, which was so _naïve_ and open.