Miss Diana forced herself to eat something.  She knew if she did not, Unavella would be worried, and she possessed that peculiar regard for the feelings of others which would not allow her to consider her own.

“You are a wonderful cook, Unavella,” she said, with a pathetic cheerfulness which did not deceive her faithful handmaiden, who, as she confided afterwards to a friend, wuz weepin’ bitter gall tears in her mind, though she kep’ a calm front outside, for she wuzn’t goin’ ter be outdid in pluck by that little bit of sweetness.  “I shall be able to give you a beautiful character.”

She lifted her hand with a deprecating gesture as Unavella was about to burst forth with a stormy denial.

“Not yet, please, Unavella; not just yet.  Let me have time to think a little before you say anything.  I feel rather shaken.  The news was so very unexpected, you see,” she said with a shadowy smile, which Unavella averred “cut her heart clean in two.”  “But everything is just right, Unavella, that happens to the Lord’s children, you know.  Things look a little misty now, but I shall see the sunlight again by and bye.  In the meantime there is this delicious dinner.  Someone ought to be reaping the benefit of it.  Suppose you take it to poor Mrs. Dixon?  She enjoys anything tasty so much and she cannot afford to buy dainties for herself.”  Miss Diana would never learn the economy which is content to be comfortable while a neighbor is in need.  “And, Unavella, if you please, you might say I am not receiving callers this afternoon.  I am afraid it is not very hospitable, but I feel as if I must be alone.  This has been rather a sudden shock to me.”

“You, you—­angul!” exclaimed Unavella, as soon as she had regained the privacy of her kitchen, while a briny crystal of genuine affection rolled down her cheek and splashed unceremoniously into the gravy.

Up-stairs in her pretty chamber Miss Diana sat and thought.  Ruin and starvation.  Was that what it meant?  She had seen the words in print often but they seemed different now.  Ruin meant a giving up and going out, while the auctioneer’s hammer smote upon one’s heart with cruel blows, and one could not see to say farewell because one’s eyes were full of tears.  It would not be starvation—­of the body.  She must be thankful for that.  The house and grounds were in a good locality and she had refused several handsome offers for them during the past year.

She caught her breath a little as she thought of the wide stretching field where her dainty Jersey was feeding, with its cluster of trees in one corner, under which a brook babbled joyously as it danced on its way to the river; the pretty barn with its pigeon-house where her snow-white fantails craned their imperious heads; the wide porch with its flower drapery, where she sat and read or worked with her pet spaniel at her feet, and where her friends loved to gather through the summer afternoons and chat over the early supper before they went back to the city’s grime and stir.