enly little ways, that time has not dimmed one line in the
picture that they then made upon my mind. I can see them now as
clearly as I saw them then, as I stood at the tinsmith's door in the
High Street of Oakford--let me see, how many years ago? ("Never mind,"
says my wife; "go on with the story, my dear," and I go on.)

The child who looked the older, but was, as I afterwards discovered,
the younger of the two, was also the less pretty. And yet she had a
sweet little face, hair like spun gold, and blue-grey eyes with dark
lashes. She wore a grey frock of some warm material, below which
peeped her indoors dress of blue. The outer coat had a quaint cape
like a coachman's, which was relieved by a broad white crimped frill
round her throat. Her legs were cased in knitted gaiters of white
wool, and her hands in the most comical miniatures of gloves. On her
fairy head she wore a large bonnet of grey beaver, with a frill
inside. (My wife explains that it was a "cap-front," adorned with
little bunches of ribbon, and having a cap attached to it, the whole
being put on separately before the bonnet. Details which seem to amuse
my little daughters, and to have less interest for my sons.) But it
was her sister who shone on my young eyes like a fairy vision. She
looked too delicate, too brilliant, too utterly lovely, for anywhere
but fairy-land. She ought to have been kept in tissue-paper, like the
loveliest of wax dolls. Her hair was the true flaxen, the very fairest
of the fair. The purity and vividness of the tints of red and white in
her face I have never seen equalled. Her eyes were of speedwell blue,
and looked as if they were meant to be always more or less brimming
with tears. To say the truth, her face had not half the character
which gave force to that of the other little damsel, but a certain
helplessness about it gave it a peculiar charm. She was dressed
exactly like the other, with one exception; her bonnet was of white
beaver, and she became it like a queen.

At the tinsmith's door they stopped, and the old man-servant, after
unbuckling a strap which seemed to support them in their saddle,
lifted each little miss in turn to the ground. Once on the pavement,
the little lady of the grey beaver shook herself out, and proceeded to
straighten the disarranged overcoat of her companion, and then, taking
her by the hand, the two clambered up the step into the shop. The
tinsmith's shop boasted of two seats, and on to one of