I never sat with him on the seat beneath the elm, in the starry eventide, or at moonlight's hour, without feeling that she followed us in secret with a saddened glance.
At first, whenever he came to me to walk with him, I would say,-- "Wait till I go for Edith." "Very well," he would answer, "if there is nothing in your heart that pleads for a nearer communion than that which we enjoy in the presence of others, a dearer interchange of thought and feeling, let Edith, let the whole world come." "It is for her sake, not mine, I speak,--I cannot bear the soft reproach of her loving eye!" "A sister's affection must not be too exacting," was the reply.

"All that the fondest brother can bestow, I give to Edith; but there are gifts she may not share,--an inner temple she cannot enter,--reserved alone for you.

Come, the flowers are wasting their fragrance, the stars their lustre!" How could I plead for Edith, after being silenced by such arguments?
And how could I tell her that I had interceded for her in vain?
I never imagined before that a sister's love could be _jealous_; but the same hereditary passion which was transmitted to his bosom through a father's blood, reigned in hers, though in a gentler form.
Every one who has studied human nature must have observed predominant family traits, as marked as the attributes of different trees and blossoms,--traits which, descending from parent to children, individualize them from the great family of mankind.

In some, pride towers and spreads like the great grove tree of India, the branches taking root and forming trunks which put forth a wealth of foliage, rank and unhealthy.

In others, obstinacy plants itself like a rock, which the winds and waves of opinion cannot move.