to her latest day.
"Does she know now?" he went on in a tone of mixed tenderness and triumph, like the expression of his face. "My lily! – my Camellia flower! – my sweet Magnolia! – whatever there is most rare, and good, and perfect. My best of all things. Can I have the best, Di?"
Miss Gertrude Masters would have been equal to the situation, and doubtless would have met it with great equanimity; Diana was unused to most of the world's ways, and very new to this. She stood in quiet dignity, indeed; but the stains of crimson on cheek and brow flushed and paled like the lights of a sunset. All at the bottom of her deep sun-bonnet; was Mr. Knowlton to blame if he gently pushed it back and insinuated it off, till he had a full view?
"You know what is my 'best' now," he said. "Can I have it, Diana?"
She tried to break away from him, and on her lip there broke that beautiful smile of hers; withal a little tremulous just then. It is rare on a grown woman's lip, a smile so very guileless and free; mostly it belongs to children. Yet not this smile, either.
"I should think you must know by this time," she whispered.
I suppose he did; for he put no more questions for a minute or two.
"There's one more thing," he said. "Now you know what I think of you; what do you think of me, Diana?"
"I think you are very imprudent," she said, freeing herself resolutely, and picking up her sun-bonnet. "Anybody might come, Mr. Knowlton."
"Anybody might! But if ever you call me 'Mr. Knowlton' again – I'll do something extraordinary."
Diana thought he would have a great many things to teach her, beside that. She went at her fruit-picking with bewildered haste. She did not know what she was doing, but mechanically her fingers flew and the berries fell. Mr. Knowlton picked rather more intelligently; but between them, I must say, they worked very well. Ah, the blackberry field had become a wonderful place; and while the mellow purple fruit fell fast from the branches, it seemed also as if years had reached their fruition and the perfected harvest of life had come. Could riper or richer be, than had fallen into Diana's hands now? than filled them now? So it was, she thought. And yet this was not life's harvest, only the bloom of the flower; the fruit comes not to its maturity with one sunny day, and it needs more than sunshine. But let the fruit grow; it will come in time, even if it ripens in secret; and meanwhile smell the flower. It was the fragrance of the grape blossom that filled the blackberry field; most sweet, most evanishing, most significant. Oddly, many people do not know it. But it must be that their life has never brought them within reach of its charm.
Two people in the field never knew how the shadows grew long that day. No, not even though their colloquy was soon interrupted, and by Gertrude Masters herself. She thenceforth claimed, and received, Mr. Knowlton's whole services; while Diana in her turn was assisted by Will Flandin, a young farmer of Pleasant Valley, who gave his hands and his arms to her help. It did not make much difference to Diana; it might have been an ogre, and she would not have cared; so she hardly noticed that Will, who had a glib enough tongue in ordinary, was now very silent. Diana herself said nothing. She was listening to hidden music.
"There's a wonderful lot o' blackberries on Bear Hill," Will remarked at last.
"Yes," said Diana.
"Well, I guess we've cleaned 'em out pretty well for this time," pursued he.
"Have we?" said Diana.
"Why, all these folks ha' been pickin' all day; I should think they'd ha' made a hole in 'em."
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