CHAPTER III.

TWO HEROINES.

As the reader has been presented very unceremoniously to two of the most important personages in the list of our dramatis personæ, and has seen them only in the unbecoming guise or rather disguise of comfortable security against the "skyey influences" that might otherwise have "visited" their fair cheeks "too roughly," we shall take the perhaps unwarrantable liberty of following them to their "bower," as it would have been styled in days of more poetic description than the present. In plain prose, this "bower," for it would have been as needless to prepare two as to insist on building two nests for a pair of turtle-doves, was neither more nor less than a neat and comfortable apartment in the more ancient portion of the building, and which always seemed to possess a special attraction for the family.

This partiality was probably the effect of association and habit, though there was something attractive in the endless and apparently useless profusion of doors and windows, of corridors and stairways, and in the curiously carved cornices and panelled walls; the unusual breadth of the panels attesting the gigan

tic size of the primeval trees from which they had been fashioned.

The six windows of the "bower" of our "ladyes faire," for it boasted of this rather unusual number, looked out, on three sides, on the prospect which has been already described. Happily the windows did not pretend to the giant proportions of the panels, as in such an event, the soft carpet and glowing fire heaped up on the hearth, and dispensing a comforting warmth and radiance, would not have availed to counteract their influence. But besides that these windows had the advantage of being somewhat smaller than modern taste would sanction, they were sheltered by their pretty curtains of white and rose, daintily assorted in materials and color with the coverings of the delicate toilette tables, in the decoration of which the industry and skill of one of the turtles had been exercised to prove her appreciation of the honor done her by her friend in sharing her "bower."

The large bed and its snowy pillows attested the same care, by certain "inimitable little borders;" the alabaster vases filled with half-blown roses and camellias, and best of all, a table covered with choice books, on the top of which lay the precious bible and prayer book of every-day use, gave in these distinguishing features a just idea of the occupants of the

room.

As we shall not perhaps again enjoy an opportunity of seeing to such singular advantage the inmates of this favored apartment, we shall for once, and once only, play the Asmodeus of Le Sage, though almost

unwilling to confess that we have been guilty of such a clandestine intrusion on their unconscious innocence. But at the moment when the "Boiteux" afforded the revelation, their dinner toilettes were nearly completed, and our young beauties appeared in a costume altogether admissible in a fashionable assembly, except that a cloud of fleecy tulle had not been added to it. We have only one peculiar privilege,-that of seeing in their full luxuriance the rich tresses that fell unconfined over their fair shoulders and arms. As one was seated and the other standing, their respective heights cannot well be compared, but a transient glance would have given them nearly the same stature.

We have no fancy for heroines who are supposed to derive their charms from their extraordinary altitude, like those of the old fashioned romances, who seem to have been selected as was the first Israelitish sovereign, for being a head and shoulders taller than other people. We shall content ourselves with saying that neither of ours was below, and not many inches above the height of "the statue that enchants the world." Like that most wonderful of all the glorious relics of classic Florence, a symmetry approaching perfection diminished the graceful outlines to the eye, and more than ever proved that beauty of person in woman, like that of her mind and heart, depends more upon perfect harmony than upon the predominance of any peculiar charm.

But let it not be supposed, because our heroines did not exceed the "middle stature," by which is probably meant that as many are below as above it,

that they were specimens of a sort of fade mediocrity, as the juste milieu is sometimes interpreted. On the contrary, no pains had been spared to develope the excellencies nature had freely bestowed upon both, and the choice between them would seem to depend, as in that of a rose or a violet, a camellia or a carnation, not so much on their relative merits, as on the taste or the fancy of the connoisseur. The word seem has been purposely introduced, because the reader may perhaps have a preference, and we are unwilling to bias that opinion by any pretension to superior judgment.

Neither of them had numbered more than seventeen summers, not quite the age that Madame de Genlis has indicated as that of the perfection of womanly beauty.

In few words, Evelyn Walsingham might be presented as was Rose Bradwardine, "with a profusion of hair of paly gold, and a skin as white as the snow of her native mountains." But it would hardly be just to dispose thus summarily of hair that in its silken texture and glossy waves set off to marvellous advantage a complexion of as pure and exquisite a hue as that formed from the two competitors in Flora's garden, who reconciled their regal aspirations by "reigning united" in the cheek of the "fairest British fair." Her blue eyes mirrored a heart both kind and true, and her complexion might have been imagined an index to her transparent character; for the slightest emotion sent the mantling blood to her cheek, and often betrayed her inmost thoughts before her lips gave them speech; yet it would have been a pity to deprive such lips of their office, for "coral and pearls,"

so often brought up from their ocean depths for a similar comparison, can alone serve to complete our description of them.

In its fairness the complexion of Constance equalled that of her friend, but there was a difference in the shade, if what was so fair could be said to have a shade, and the bloom called up in her cheek by their recent healthful exercise resembled the faint carnation that gives to the interior of the conch shell its peculiar beauty. Nature had departed from her usual rules, and in one of those charming freaks in which she delights, had traced dark though delicately pencilled brows upon the pure forehead. The tresses that fell in graceful negligence over her snowy shoulders were of that brilliant Titian hue so justly admired, though a shade darker than those which distinguish the favorites of the great artist.

The color of her eyes remained a mystery, for no one had ever thought of assigning any special color to eyes whose constantly varying expression, now half hidden by the long silken lashes, now sparkling out in laughing brilliancy, changed every moment, as emotions of sensibility or playfulness held their alternate sway in her heart. The outline of her chiselled lip would have served a sculptor for a model, if he could have caught it, but at the appearance of any one of the little dimples that lurked in its corners, or a single smile revealing its pearly treasures, he would have thrown down his implements of art in despair of imitating any thing so fairy-like and charming.

Her small fair hands were dexterously and busily occupied in braiding the golden locks of her compan