THE TWIN SISTERS. 403 



delightful children, or creatures more worthy of a better fate, were 

 never seen. Exquisitely and delicately beautiful, they were, when 

 seen gliding amidst the coarser forms around them, in comparison 



" Bright, 



With something of an angel light " 



They were very models of graceful girlhood. Their early life had 

 been spent in the acquirement of all those little embellishments that 

 the age is susceptible of. They had been most carefully nurtured; 

 and the heart must have been a hard one which had seen them in a 

 situation so totally foreign to all their habits, without grieving for 

 such fair and apparently fragile flowers, rudely transplanted into a 

 soil so little likely even for their existence. The plastic spirit of 

 youth will, however, accommodate itself to almost any change; and 

 the two little girls lived, and after a short time seemed even to enjoy 

 themselves in their new abode. 



They were strangely alike ; so perfect was their outward re- 

 semblance, that it is questionable if any one who saw them was 

 certain of their individual identity. Their similitude was not merely 

 physical. The same moral character developed itself: the same 

 general tone of thinking, and consequently of acting, still farther 

 served to strengthen the uncertainty. Neither did the children them- 

 selves seem conscious of a separate existence, but were in turn both 

 Annes, and both Janes; and this having been the case from the 

 earliest period to which memory could reach, had probably produced 

 this singularity in their minds. 



At the time of their mother's death they were within a few weeks 

 of being nine years of age. As they grew older, they became, if pos- 

 sible, still more beautiful. Though meanly clad, their early habits of 

 neatness and cleanliness had remained with them, assisted powerfully 

 by the exertions and constant attention of their grandmother. The 

 remembrance of what station they had once held clung to her ; and 

 as their personal appearance was the sole remaining fragment of their 

 ruined fortunes, she sedulously strove to prevent them in these 

 respects from sinking down to the level of the other inmates of the 

 house. These efforts had the very best effects upon them : cleanli- 

 ness, as it ever does, produced personal regard from others, and kept 

 alive within themselves a self-respect, which was shown by a 

 decorous behaviour, a propriety of demeanour, an unfailing attend- 

 ance to their various duties, and most especially by a desire of 

 acquiring such information as was afforded by the school. 



A singular change about this period occurred in the character of 

 the grandmother. At the time of her son's failure, the shock seemed 

 almost to have overpowered her faculties. She sunk into a state of 

 apathy, which rendered her careless or unconscious; and, after being 

 tossed from one friend to another, had joined the children in the 

 workhouse, without any expression of sympathy or regret. As the 

 two beautiful flowers sprung up before her, though the decrepitude of 

 premature old age had already bowed down her form, a develop- 

 ment of all her original cultivated and affectionate qualities took 

 place, and became of the most signal benefit to their best interests. 



