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nonsense witli them, nor when lie pondered over the 

 different styles of their extraordinary loveliness, could 

 he bring to his recollection any thing so fair as either 

 of the two sisters, much less any thing fairer nor could 

 he make up his mind which was the lovelier of the two. 



The dark-ringleted and dark-browed Cheshire, with 

 her wild, flashing, dark eyes full of unearthly spiritual 

 light, her high and somewhat attenuated features, her 

 slender, graceful figure, her high-born air, and proud, 

 majestic gait, that seemed almost too proudly delicate 

 to tread the earth which might mar the divinity of her 

 footsteps. 



The soft, voluptuous Isabella A*, with her great, 

 full blue eyes, her skin whiter than mountain snow, 

 yet flushed with a rosy lustre as of the sunset on the 

 stainless glaciers of Mont Blanc ; her lips ripe as a 

 peach in August, and rich as the tints of a clove car- 

 nation ; her plump and falling shoulders, her exquisite 

 and womanly bust, round arms, and glorious figure — 

 oh ! pair not to be surpassed, not to be equaled in your 

 day, from east to west, from north to south, round the 

 wide world ; years have elapsed, the fourth part of a 

 century has rolled over, since first I saw your maiden 

 sister bloom, out-dazzling the eyes of all beholders, 

 out-shining all the rivalry of loveliest coeval beauties. 

 Wives now, and happy mothers, with daughters scarce 

 so lovely as yourselves, glittering and enthralling 

 where ye shone enchantresses of old, I think of ye, 

 but as I saw ye last, ere time or sorrow, which must 

 be to all mortals, had dimmed one sparkle of those lus- 

 trous eyes, or blanched one hair of those glorious 

 tresses, lovely ye must be still, and lustrous ; but with a 

 loveliness and lustre different from what I then beheld, 

 diff'erent from what yet a little later than I, Percy 

 Fairfax beheld, and would have perhaps loved to ad- 

 miration and to madness, but that he was saved by the 

 presence of two beings exquisitely, yet how equally 



