There were no forbidden topics between us. There was one, indeed, which by tacit mutual consent we always avoided, and that was all that concerned Sir Launcelot Trevor. Lettice, always scenting from afar the least symptom of what could pain, never approached what had been the cause of so much anguish to Roger; and me she never freed from the suspicion of a certain sisterly injustice in my sentiments towards my brother's enemy. But a very insignificant and unnecessary chamber indeed was this to be locked out of the palace of delights through which we three roamed at will together. Nor can I remember one pang of vexation at my own falling from the first place to the second in Roger's thoughts. If I had not loved Lettice on my own account as I did, there was nothing in Roger's love for her that could have sown one miserable seed of jealousy in my heart. If he loved her most, he was more to me than ever before. The reflection of his tender reverence for her fell like a glory on all women for her sake. He was more to all for being most to her. Mean calculations of more or less, better or best, could not enter into comparison in affections stamped with such a sweet diversity. All true love expands, not narrows; strengthens, not weakens; anoints the eyes with eye-salve, not blinds; opens the heart, and opens the world, and transfigures the universe into an enchanted palace and treasure-house of joys, simply by giving the key to unlock its chambers, and the vision to see its treasures. This was the innermost heart of the joy of those our halcyon days, that Roger and Lettice and I were together. We three made for ourselves our new Atlantis. We should have made it equally in the dingiest street of London city. Only, there the joy within us would have had to transform our world into a paradise. At Netherby, riding over the fields with the fresh air in our faces, or roaming the musical woods, or skimming the Mere while Roger rowed, and dipping our hands in the cool waters, or talking endlessly on the fragrant garden terraces of the Manor and the Hall, it had not to transform, only to translate.