nearer from the beach, Martha Scandwell felt herself vibrant and
tremulous with sudden resolve of daring. She waved the children
away.

"Run along, dears, run along, Grandma and Aunt Bella want to talk."

And as the shrill, sweet treble of child voices ebbed away across
the lawn, Martha, with scrutiny of the heart, observed the sadness
of the lines graven by secret woe for half a century in her
sister's face. For nearly fifty years had she watched those lines.
She steeled all the melting softness of the Hawaiian of her to
break the half-century of silence.

"Bella," she said. "We never know. You never spoke. But we
wondered, oh, often and often--"

"And never asked," Bella murmured gratefully.

"But I am asking now, at the last. This is our twilight. Listen
to them! Sometimes it almost frightens me to think that they are
grandchildren, MY grandchildren--I, who only the other day, it
would seem, was as heart-free, leg-free, care-free a girl as ever
bestrode a horse, or swam in the big surf, or gathered opihis at
low tide, or laughed at a dozen lovers. And here in our twilight
let us forget everything save that I am your dear sister as you are
mine."

The eyes of both were dewy moist. Bella palpably trembled to
utterance.