in everything, became a second nature, supplanting for the time the first and greater one of loving you as I do!’

Still weeping, but not sadly — joyfully!

And clasped in my arms as she had never been, as I had thought she never was to be!

‘When I loved Dora — fondly, Agnes, as you know — ’

‘Yes!’ she cried, earnestly. ‘I am glad to know it!’

‘When I loved her — even then, my love would have been incomplete, without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected. And when I lost her, Agnes, what should I have been without you, still!’

Closer in my arms, nearer to my heart,