The thought was hell!

Faint and trembling, he gazed down upon her as they strolled along, compelling her soft eyes to meet his anguished ones.  His face was white and strained with his misery.  She was pale and trembling, too, and there was dew on the sweeping lashes, and as she lifted them and looked into his face she trembled more.  He looked upon her, tenderly marvelling to see in her at once the loveliest of children and of women—­a woman with her first grief!

There was heart-break in his voice, for himself and for her, as he murmured (brokenly) words of love and of comfort in her ear, and in her voice as she, brokenly, answered him.

The sun was setting—­a pageant in which they both were wont to take exquisite delight—­but they could not look at the glowing heavens for the heaven of love and of beautiful sorrow that each found in the eyes of the other.

Suddenly, they knew!

The knowledge burst upon them like an illumining flood.  How or whence it came they could not tell, nor did they question—­but they knew that the love they bore each other was no brother and sister love, but that what time they had been calling each other “Buddie,” and “Sissy,” there had been growing—­growing in their hearts the red, red rose of romance—­the love betwixt man and maid of which poets tell—­knew that in that sweet, that sad, that wondrous eventide the rose had burst into glorious flower.

They trembled in the presence of this sweetest miracle.  The beauty and solemnity of it well nigh deprived them of the power of speech.  A divine silence fell upon them and they slowly, softly took their way homeward through the gathering dusk, hand in hand—­but with few words—­to tell the Mother.

To the widow their disclosure came as a shock.  At first she thought the silly pair must be joking—­then that they were mad.  Finally she realized their earnestness and their happiness and saw that the situation was serious and must be dealt with with the utmost tact.  Still, she could hardly believe what she saw and heard.  Was it possible that the demure girl talking to her so seriously of love and marriage was her little Virginia—­her baby?  And that these two should have thought of such a thing!  Cousins!—­Brother and sister, almost!—­And with such disparity in ages—­thirteen and six-and-twenty!

She had lived long enough, however, to know that love is governed by no rules or regulations and besides, she had kept through all the changes and chances of her checkered life, a belief in true love as fresh as a girl’s.  This was too sacred a thing to be carelessly handled—­only, it was not what she would have chosen....  Yet—­was it not?

A new thought came to her—­a revelation—­inspiration—­what you will, and sunk her in deep revery.

Why was this not what she would have chosen?  Why not a union between her children—­her all?  Her own days were fast running out.  She could not live and make a home for them always—­then, what would become of them?  She would die happy, when her time came, if she could see them in their own home, bound by the most sacred, the most indissoluble of ties—­bound together until death should part them!