pair of dark gray eyes and the soft
half-smile which played around either mouth. To them she seemed to be
drawn within the mystic circle which separated them from others--she,
alone; and they no longer imagined a life in which she should not share.

Then the inevitable step was taken. Jonathan declared his love, and was
answered. Alas! he almost forgot David that late summer evening, as they
sat in the moonlight, and over and over again assured each other how
dear they had grown. He felt the trouble in David's heart when they met.

"Ruth is ours, and I bring her kiss to you," he said, pressing his lips
to David's; but the arms flung around him trembled, and David whispered,
"Now the change begins."

"Oh, this cannot be our burden!" Jonathan cried, with all the rapture
still warm in his heart.

"If it is, it will be light, or heavy, or none at all, as we shall bear
it," David answered, with a smile of infinite tenderness.

For several days he allowed Jonathan to visit the Bradley farm alone,
saying that it must be so on Ruth's account. Her love, he declared, must
give her the fine instinct which only their mother had ever possessed,
and he must allow it time to be confirmed. Jonathan, however, insisted
that Ruth already possessed it; that she was beginning to wonder at his
absence, and to fear that she would not be entirely welcome to the home
which must always be equally his.

David yielded at once.

"You must go alone," said Jonathan, "to satisfy yourself that she knows
us at last."

Ruth came forth from the house as he drew near. Her face beamed; she
laid her hands upon his shoulders and kissed him. "Now you cannot doubt
me, Ruth!" he said, gently.

"Doubt you, Jonathan!" she exclaimed with a fond reproach in her eyes.
"But you look troubled; is any thing the matter?"

"I was thinking of my brother," said David, in a low tone.

"Tell me what it is," she said, drawing him into the little arbor of
woodbine near the gate. They took seats side by side on the rustic
bench. "He thinks I may come between you: is it not that?" she asked.
Only one thing was clear to David's mind--that she would surely speak
more frankly and freely of him to the supposed Jonathan than to his real
self. This once he would permit the illusion.

"Not more than must be," he answered. "He knew all from the very
beginning. But we have been like one person in two bodies, and any
change seems to divide us."

"I feel as you do," said Ru