"How strange is the idea of having a brother!" said Margaret. "I never see girls with their brothers but I watch them, and long to feel what it is, just for one hour. I wonder what difference it would have made between you and me, if we had had a brother." "You and he would have been close friends--always together, and I should have been left alone," said Hester, with a sigh. "Oh, yes," she continued, interrupting Margaret's protest, "it would have been so. There can never be the same friendship between three as between two." "And why should you have been the one left out?" asked Margaret. "But this is all nonsense--all a dream," she added. "The reality is that baby died--still a baby--and we know no more of what he would have been, than of what he is. The real truth is, that you and I are alone, to be each other's only friend." "It makes me tremble to think of it, Margaret. It is not so long since our home seemed full. How we used all to sit round the fire, and laugh and play with papa, as if we were not to separate till we had all grown old: and now, young as we are, here we are alone! How do we know that we shall be left to each other?" "There is only one thing we can do, Hester," said Margaret, resting her head on her sister's shoulder. "We must make the most of being together while we can. There must not be the shadow of a cloud between us for a moment. Our confidence must be as full and free, our whole minds as absolutely open, as--as I have read and heard that two minds can never be." "Those who say so do not know what may be," exclaimed Hester. "I am sure there is not a thought, a feeling in me, that I could not tell you, though I know I never could to any one else." "If I were to lose you, Hester, there are many, many things that would be shut up in me for ever. There will never be any one on earth to whom I could say the things that I can tell to you. Do you believe this, Hester?" "I do. I know it." "Then you will never again doubt me, as you certainly have done sometimes. You cannot imagine how my heart sinks when I see you are fancying that I care for somebody else more than for you; when you think that I am feeling differently from you. Oh, Hester, I know every change of your thoughts by your face; and indeed your thoughts have been mistaken sometimes." "They have been wicked, often," said Hester, in a low voice. "I have sometimes thought that I must be hopelessly bad, when I have found that the strongest affection I have in the world has made me unjust and cruel to the person I love best. I have a jealous temper, Margaret; and a jealous temper is a wicked temper." "Now you are unkind to yourself, Hester. I do believe you will never doubt me again." "I never will. And if I find a thought of the kind rising in me, I will tell you the moment I am aware of it."