“As if I'd let you dirty your hands with such rubbish! I sent the note back to him with just one line, 'Such a fool as you are has no right to be a villain.' There, David, there is your poor sister's life. Oh, what I went through for that man! Often I said, is Heaven just, to let a poor, faithful, loving girl, who has done no harm, be played with on the hook, and tortured hot and cold, day after day, month after month, year after year, as I was? But now I see why it was permitted; it was for your sake, that you might profit by my sharp experience, and not fling your heart away on frozen mud, as I did;” and, happy in this feminine theory of Divine justice, Eve rested on her brother a look that would have adorned a seraph, then took him gently round the neck and laid her little cheek flat to his. She felt as if she had just saved a beloved life. Who can estimate the value of a happiness so momentary, yet so holy? Presently looking up, she saw David's face illuminated. “What is it?” she asked joyously; “you look pleased.” David was “pleased because now he was sure she could feel for him, and would side with him.” “That I do; but, David, as it is all over between you and her--” “All over? Am I dead then?” Eve gasped with astonishment: “Why, what have I been telling you all this for?” “Who should you tell your trouble to but your own brother? Why, Eve--ha! ha!--you don't really see any likeness between your case and mine, do you? You are not so blind as to compare her with that thundering muff?” “They are brother and sister, as we are,” was the reply. “Ever since I saw you looked her way, my eye has hardly been off her, and she is Henry Dyke in petticoats.” “I don't thank you for saying that. Well, and if she is, what has that to do with it? I am not a woman. I am not forced to lie to waiting for a wind, as the girls are. I am a man. I can work for the wish of my heart, and, if it does not come to meet me, I can overhaul it.” Eve was a little staggered by this thrust, but she was not one to show an antagonist any advantage he had obtained. “David,” said she, coldly, “it must come to one of two things; either she will send you about your business in form, which is a needless affront for you and me both, or she will hold you in hand, and play with you and drive you _mad._ Take warning; remember what is in our blood. Father was as well as you are, but agitation and vexation robbed him of his reason for a while; and you and I are his children. Milk of roses creeps along in that young lady's veins, but fire gallops in ours. Give her up, David, as she has you. She has let you escape; don't fly back like a moth to the candle! You shan't, however; I won't let you.” “Eve,” said David, quietly, “you argue well, but you can't argue light into dark, nor night into day. She is the sun to me. I have seen her light; and now I can't live without it.”