erate eyes.

As they walked down a path, Graydon said, "Take my arm; the pavement
is a little rough. Dear Madge, you look divine to night. Every time
I see you my wonder increases at what you accomplished out on the
Pacific coast. That great, boundless, sparkling ocean has given you
something of its own nature."

"Graydon, you must be more sensible. When a fellow takes your arm you
don't squeeze it against your side and say, 'Dear Tom,' 'Sweet Dick,'
or 'Divine Harry,' no matter how good friends they may be. Friends
don't indulge in sentimental, far-fetched compliments."

"I certainly never did with any friends of mine. On this very walk you
told me that you were not my sister, and added, 'There is no use in
trying to ignore nature.' See how true this last assertion is proving,
now that I am again under your influence, and so enjoy your society
that I cannot ignore nature. During all those years when you were
growing from childhood to womanhood I treated you as a sister, thought
of you as such. It was nature, or rather the accord of two natures,
that formed and cemented the tie, and not an accident of birth.
Even when you were an invalid, and I was stupid enough to call you
'lackadaisical,' your presence always gave me pleasure. Often when I
had been out all the evening I would say, with vexation, 'I wish I had
stayed at home with the little ghost.' How you used to order me about
and tyrannize over me from your sofa when you were half child and half
woman! I can say honestly, Madge, it was never a bore to me, for you
had an odd, piquant way of saying and doing things that always amused
me; your very weakness was an appeal to my strength, and a claim upon
it. You always appeared to have a sister's affection for me, and your
words and manner proved that I brought some degree of brightness into
your shadowed life. In learning to love you as a sister in all those
years, wherein did I ignore nature? During my absence my feelings did
not change in the least, as I proved by my attempts at correspondence,
by my greeting when we met. Then you perplexed and worried me more
than you would believe, and I imagined all sorts of ridiculous things
about you; but on that drive, after your vigil with that poor, dying
girl, I felt that I understood you fully at last. Indeed, ever since
your rescue of the little Wilder child from drowning my old feelings
have been coming back with tenfold force. I can't help thinking of
you, of being pr