" They are in love," I said.
•" It is one and the same thing. Love and happiness go hand
in hand," she replied.
" After all, what is love ?" I asked, slowly. I knew that
was treading op dangerous ground, yet I could not resist the
temptation. It was the same recklessness, which, when a boy,
had prompted me to essay the strength of a newly-frozen lake,
even though I knew the ice to be unsafe. Dorothy did not
answer at once. Then she paused in her walk, and laying a hand
on my arm, looked searchingly into my face.
" Love," said she with strange earnestness, " is undying affec
tion—the single passion of a lifetime "
" Do you, then, believe that one can love but once—or love but
one person ?" I asked, slowly.
_ _
" The way you mean—yes," she said.
Her words moved me strangely. My.memory went back into
the realms of the past, and from the confusion there plucked a
single scene, .which hung like a dead-weight upon my mind.
" Dorothy," I said tenderly, " may I tell you a litte story
about myself? You are a friend and I want you to judge me." .
She gave a willing assent, and waited patiently.
" It was five long years ago that it happened," I began, " and
I count it now simply as a mid-summer madness, yet at that time
it seemed wofully sincere and real." I saw Dorothy's face grow
suddenly grave, and a surprised, pained expression came into her
eyes. I hastened on hurriedly. " I had known her for years,
and we had always been the best of friends, until, one night—
just such a night as this,—l was overcome by the witchery of the
moment and told her I loved her. She laughed at my earnestness
and told me I surely was in jest, little knowing how she was
wounding my feelings by her flippancy. The same thing occurred
again and again. She never lost the opportunity to show me
that she did not believe me, and, under such repellent conditions,
I forgot her. Then, years later, there came into my life another
being, and in that same instant I knew that I had found the
counterpart of my ideal. Is it not possible, then, that I could
forget that first madness, and that my heart is as true as before ?"
Dorothy did not answer. It was hard to judge,—doubly so
since she knew that it was her own . dear self that had stolen so
silently and yet so surely into my life and had become a part of it.
HER BROTHER'S SISTER