t there it was all the time, ready for any service, staunch
for any trial. It was one of the laws which kept the little world I have
been describing slung safely in space, and securely shining.

It was, indeed, something like a perfect relationship,--this love of
Esther and Henry. Had the laws of nature permitted it, it is probable
that Mike and Angel would have been forced to seek their mates
elsewhere. As it was, though it was thus less than marriage, it was more
than friendship--as the holy intercourse of a mother and a son is more
than friendship. Freed from the perturbations of sex, it yet gained
warmth and exhilaration from the unconscious presence of that
stimulating difference. Though they were brother and sister, friend and
friend, Henry and Esther were also man and woman. So satisfying were
they to each other, that when they sat thus together, the truth must be
told, that, for the time at all events, they missed no other man
or woman.

"I have always you," said Esther.

"Do I still matter, then?" said Henry. "Are you sure the old love is not
growing old?"

"You know it can never grow old. There is only one Mike; but there is
only one Henry too. It's a good love to have, Harry, isn't it? It makes
one feel so much safer in the world."

"Dear little Esther! Do you remember those old beatings, and that night
you brought me the cake? Bless you!"--and Henry reached his hand across
the table, and laid it so kindly on Esther's that a hovering waiter
retreated out of delicacy, mistaking the pair for lovers. It was a
mistake that was often made when they were together; and they had
sometimes laughed, when travelling, at the kind-hearted way passengers
on the point of entering their carriage had suddenly made up their minds
not to disturb the poor newly-married young things.

"And how we used to hate you once!" said Esther; "one can hardly
understand it now. Do you remember how on Sunday afternoons you would
insist on playing at church, and how, with a tablecloth for a surplice,
you used to be the minister? How you used to storm if we poor things
missed any of the responses!"

"The monstrous egoism of it all!" said Henry, laughing. "It was all got
up to give me a stage, and nothing else. I didn't care whether you
enjoyed it or not. What dragons children are!"

"'Dragons of the prime, that tare each other in their slime,'" quoted
Esther. "Yes, we tore each other, and no mistake--"

"Well, I've made up for it si