Two characters from the heart of friendly, intimate circle (7)
I believe the answer is:
enclose
'friendly intimate circle' is the definition.
'enclose' can be an answer for 'circle' (thesaurus). I'm unsure of the 'friendly intimate' bit.
'two characters from the heart' is the wordplay.
'two characters' can mean two substitutions for 'character'.
'character' becomes 'e'.
'character' becomes 'n'.
'from the heart' becomes 'close' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'e'+'n'+'close'='ENCLOSE'
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for enclose that I've seen before include "Totally surround" , "Encompass" , "embrace" , "Fence in (common land)" , "Surround, envelop" .)