“I don’t know,” sighed Diana, sitting in an easy attitude on the arm of a chair. “He’s much better looking,” she added, confidentially; “not a boy any more, you see. So somehow you can’t laugh.” “Did you want to?” “N--no--that was the annoying part.” Mrs. Summers again repressed a smile. “He didn’t lose much time in coming to see you,” she remarked. “No--did he?” replied Diana, briskly. “So the beastly Brown girl didn’t make much impression, anyway.” “Well? What are you going to do about it?” Rose inquired. Diana sighed again. “I don’t know!” she exclaimed, impatiently. “I do _hate_ to be grown up--it’s such a bother.” Despite the childishness of the words, Rose was struck by the ring of real dismay in the girl’s voice. “Why, dear?” she said. For a moment Diana did not answer, then she said, suddenly, “Because I see what life is like. It’s just like one of those days that are so brilliant at first, and then cloud over and get all gray. Not stormy or anything, you know,--just gray.” There was a tremble in her voice which touched the elder woman. She recalled the chilling breath from real life which had first crept into the paradise of her own youthful imagination. She remembered how, before it, the flowers drooped, and the sunshine faded. It was a searching, unpleasant wind. “Never glad, confident morning again?” she said, softly, after a moment. “But, my dear, the sun comes out again sometimes, even on a gray day.” “Yes,” Diana reluctantly agreed; “but then it’s afternoon--perhaps evening.” “Wait till you get a little more grown up,” returned Rose, smiling. “You’ll think better of afternoon. In the meantime, cheer up; there’s still all the morning for _you_.” Diana shook her head. “I think I’ve had my morning,” she answered, slowly. “It was when I _couldn’t_ understand why people let--love and things count.” “And now you begin to see?” She nodded. “Well, at least I see that perhaps they can’t help it.” She looked wistfully at Mrs. Summers, her face, still babyish and immature, full of a painful foreboding. “But I dread it,” she added, almost in a whisper. “Look at Cecily. Think how much in love she was. Do you remember Robert, too?... And what has come of it all? What has been the good of it?” “Perhaps more than you think,” Rose answered, quickly. “Love is not a thing which demands payment by result. And besides, my dear, in any case, what has that to do with you? Each of us must travel our own road, take our own risks, meet our own fate. No one else’s experience is any guide.” Diana looked at her with big eyes, increasingly hopeful, but said nothing. “You are sad to lose your childhood?” Rose went on after a moment, patting the girl’s arm affectionately. “I know. So was I. But it’s all in the day’s journey, Diana. Dawn is a lovely thing--but suppose one never saw the sunrise?” “Oh!” exclaimed Diana, and two suns rose simultaneously in her eyes and set them dancing. “That would be _awful_, wouldn’t it?”