But amidst this strange asceticism the one still remained to the other as a dear, loving, and beloved sister; and if all the world should be nothing to them, they would still be all the world to each other. The seclusion had lasted five years since the death of the mother, and still no decay of their mutual attachment could be observed. It is here that commences the wonderful part of my story,--so wonderful, indeed, that if I had not had at second-hand the testimony of an eye-witness, confirmed by the traditions of the Close, I could scarcely have ventured the recital I here offer; not that I consider the facts as unnatural, but that the causes which change love into hatred, and superinduce the latter often in a direct ratio to the former, lie so deep, and are altogether so mysterious, that we cannot understand the meaning of their being there, and far less how they came to be there. Some strange and unaccountable change came over these hitherto loving sisters, not only at the same time, but without its having ever been ascertained that there was any physical or moral reason for it. It began to show itself in small catches and sharper rejoinders; minim points not discernible by their former love became subjects of difference. Then the number of these increased where the points of contact were, as one might say, infinite. They assert that nature resents too close an affinity of affection; nor is this altogether theory, for we see every day friendships which are so close as to merge identities flare up into terrible hatreds; and we have scriptural authority for the wrath of brothers. A plain man would get out of the difficulty in a plain way. Those sisters had become discontented because they had rejected that natural food of the mind which is derived from an intercourse with the world; and who does not know that discontent always finds a peg somewhere whereon to hang a grievance. Where you have many people about you, you have a greater choice of these pegs; if you are cooped up in a room with only one human being within your vision, you are limited; but the pegs must be got, and _are_ got, till the whole of the one object, a miserable scapegoat, is covered with them. Probably the plain man is right. I leave him to the philosopher, and keep to my safe duty as a narrator.