With the tragic story that surrounded their birth, and the tragic elements that lay slumbering in their own natures, it was most unfortunate that Jewel and Flower should have lost their heart to the same man.

Laurie Meredith was a handsome young man of about twenty-three years, tall, and finely proportioned, with a very attractive face. He had a broad, intellectual white brow, crowned by wavy, dark-brown hair, glorious, brown eyes that could look dangerously tender, and his firm yet sweet lips were half hidden beneath a silky-brown mustache, whose long ends curled around a well-formed chin cleft by a charming dimple.

He was spending his vacation from college at the sea-side resort where the Fieldings lived, and he had made the acquaintance of Jewel and Flower in a most romantic fashion, having saved the life of Jewel one day when her pretty little boat had overturned in deep water. Swimming boldly out to the sinking girl, he had succeeded in saving her just as the pretty dark head was disappearing for the last time under the treacherous waves. Then, righting the overturned boat, he succeeded in getting into it with his exhausted companion, and rowed back to shore.

This little incident had made Laurie Meredith a hero in the eyes of the beautiful twin sisters. They vied with each other in gratitude, and even the cold, indifferent Mrs. Fielding could not choose but regard the brave young gentleman with favor.

Jewel fell in love in the most approved novel fashion with her handsome preserver, and for a short while it seemed as if he returned the compliment. The most delicious flatteries fell from his lips, the most daring glances shone from his glorious brown eyes. He was often by her side and Flower's, and he said to himself that it would be quite in keeping with this romance if he should make dark-eyed Jewel Fielding his adored bride.

Then a change came gradually over him. He began to grow impartial in his attentions to the two girls; he began to think in secret of Flower's beautiful blue eyes and golden hair. When he parted from her he would press the white hand tightly in his own, and from thinking that he could not decide which was more beautiful, he began to perceive that if one must decide he should say it was Flower. Then the situation began to grow embarrassing. He wanted to make love to Flower, but he realized that he had been too imprudent with her sister. He had responded too readily to her coquettish advances, and he was afraid of the lightning that could flash upon occasion from those night-black eyes.

"Confound my luck! The girl thinks that I belong to her because I saved her life. I wish it had been blue-eyed Flower who owed me that sweet debt of gratitude," he thought, uneasily.

He was frank and noble, and he despised anything underhand or mean, but he could no more help making surreptitious love to Flower than he could help breathing. When in the presence of both girls he tried to be quite impartial in his words and looks, that Jewel might not have the pain of seeing her sister preferred before her, but if the dark-eyed beauty left the room for one moment, he would be sure to make some excuse to get by Flower, that he might gaze into her eyes with that long, sweet look before which her glance fell so shyly, while the lovely color flushed up high in her cheeks. Sometimes he ventured to touch the soft, white hand, and by its tremor he realized that the shy, gentle girl was not wholly indifferent to his love.

His passion began at length to find relief in that outlet for the lover's heart—poetry. Passionate "sonnets to his lady's eyebrow" began to overflow perfumed sheets of note-paper. These found their way to Flower in all the romantic methods a lover's fertile brain could invent.

Jewel was on the alert. A jealous pang had begun to tear her passionate heart. She watched her sister and Laurie Meredith with silent distrust. Little by little the bitter truth began to dawn on her mind.

A very fury of wrath swept over her, and she found it impossible to conceal her anger. So one day, when they were walking together by the sea-shore, the gathering storm burst fiercely upon her sister's golden head.

"Cruel, deceitful girl, you are trying to take my lover from me! Are you not ashamed of your treachery?"

"Jewel! Sister!"

"Do not call me your sister unless you are going to stop trying to win Laurie from me, unless you are going to give him back to me!" Jewel cried, angrily, flying into a passion, her dark eyes blazing with jealousy.

Her sister's answer only added fuel to the fire of her wrath, although it was spoken gently, pleadingly:

"Dear, I did not know he belonged to you. I thought you were only friends."

Jewel stamped her little foot furiously upon the sand.

"Only friends! Why, he saved my life—and afterward he fell in love with me! But you have tried to win him from me! Ah, I have watched you, you artful girl, and I hate you—hate you for what you have done!"

Flower stood still, her fair face paling in the afternoon sunshine, her sweet, red lips beginning to quiver.

"Sister, dear, you wrong me bitterly. Not for worlds would I have tried to take him from you. But he told me there was nothing between you, that he was free to love me—"

"A lie! a lie!" Jewel cried out, furiously. "He won my heart by his tender looks and words; he let me believe him all my own, and—oh!" she cried, choking with rage and grief, and clapping her hands to her convulsed throat.

Flower sprung forward to throw caressing arms about her, but was so rudely repulsed that she staggered, and would have fallen upon the sands had not Laurie Meredith suddenly appeared upon the scene and caught her in his arms, clung to him convulsively a moment, then drew back and stood apart from him with a look of proud pain on her beautiful face.

"Ladies, I think I heard my name mentioned? May I ask—" he began, courteously; but Jewel, who was gazing at him with burning eyes, sprung between him and her sister, and cried out, in passionate, defiant tones:

"Yes, we were speaking of you, Laurie Meredith! We were saying that you had tried to trifle with both our hearts. Call me unwomanly if you will, but I must speak out now. This cruel farce can go on no longer. You have made love to my sister and you have made love to me. You have in this cruel fashion won both our hearts. Now choose between us—between Jewel and Flower!"

If she had cherished one lingering hope that he would turn to her, she was cruelly disappointed. He went over to Flower and silently took her hand. Jewel gave them one furious look, then walked silently from the scene.