Part 16 (1/2)
What does she mean? thought Diana.
”Can you do anything?” inquired the gay lady on her arm. ”I am a useless creature; I can only fire a pistol, and leap a fence on horseback, and dance a polka. What can you do? I dare say you are worth a great deal more than me. Can you make b.u.t.ter and bread and pudding and pies and sweetmeats and pickles, and all that sort of thing? I dare say you can.”
”I can do that.”
”And all I am good for is to eat them! I can do that. Do you make cheeses too?”
”I can. My mother generally makes the cheese.”
”O, but I mean you. What do people do on a farm? women, I mean. I know what the men do. You know all about it. Do you have to milk the cows and feed everything?--chickens and pigs, you know, and all that?”
”The men milk,” said Diana.
”And you have to do those other things? Isn't it horrid?”
”It is not horrid to feed the chickens. I never had anything to do with the pigs.”
”O, but Evan says you know how to harness horses.”
Does he? thought Diana.
”And you can cut wood?”
”Cut wood!” Diana repeated. ”Did anybody say I could do that?”
”I don't know--Yes, I think so. I forget. But you can, can't you?”
”I never tried, Miss Masters.”
”Do you know my cousin, Mr. Masters?--the minister, you know?”
”Yes, I know him a little.”
”Do you like him?”
”I like him,--yes, I don't know anything against him,” said Diana in great bewilderment.
”O, but I do. Don't you know he says it is wicked to do a great many things that we do? he thinks everybody is wicked who don't do just as he does. Now I don't think everybody is bound to be a minister. He thinks it is wicked to dance; and I don't care to live if I can't dance.”
”That is being very fond of it,” said Diana.
”Do you dance her, in the country?”
”Sometimes; not very often.”
”Isn't it very dull here in the winter, when you can't go after blackberries?”
Diana smiled. ”I never found it dull,” she said. Nevertheless, the contrast smote her more and more, between what Mr. Knowlton was accustomed to in his world, and the very plain, humdrum, uneventful, unadorned life she led in hers. And this elegant creature, whose very dress was a sort of revelation to Diana in its perfection of beauty, she seemed to the poor country girl to put at an immense distance from Mr. Knowlton those who could not be charming and refined and exquisite in the like manner. Her gloves,--one hand rested on Diana's arm, and pulled a little too;--what gloves they were, for colour and fit and make! Her foot was a study. Her hat might have been a fairy queen's hat. And the face under it, pretty and gay and wilful and sweet, how could any man help being fascinated by it? Diana made up her mind that it was impossible.
The rambling path through the woods brought the party out at last upon a wild barren hill-side, where stones and a rank growth of blackberry bushes were all that was to be seen. Only far off might be had the glimpse of other hills and of patches of cultivation on them; the near landscape was all barrenness and blackberries.