eak, the first name they learned to give each
other were those of brother and sister, and childhood knows no softer
appellation. Their education, by directing them ever to consider each
other's wants, tended greatly to increase their affection. In a short
time, all the household economy, the care of preparing their rural
repasts, became the task of Virginia, whose labours were always crowned
with the praises and kisses of her brother. As for Paul, always in
motion, he dug the garden with Domingo, or followed him with a little
hatchet into the woods; and if, in his rambles he espied a beautiful
flower, any delicious fruit, or a nest of birds, even at the top of the
tree, he would climb up and bring the spoil to his sister. When you met
one of these children, you might be sure the other was not far off.

One day as I was coming down that mountain, I saw Virginia at the end of
the garden running towards the house with her petticoat thrown over her
head, in order to screen herself from a shower of rain. At a distance,
I thought she was alone; but as I hastened towards her in order to help
her on, I perceived she held Paul by the arm, almost entirely enveloped
in the same canopy, and both were laughing heartily at their being
sheltered together under an umbrella of their own invention. Those two
charming faces in the middle of a swelling petticoat, recalled to my
mind the children of Leda, enclosed in the same shell.

Their sole study was how they could please and assist one another; for
of all other things they were ignorant, and indeed could neither read
nor write. They were never disturbed by inquiries about past times, nor
did their curiosity extend beyond the bounds of their mountain. They
believed the world ended at the shores of their own island, and all
their ideas and all their affections were confined within its limits.
Their mutual tenderness, and that of their mothers, employed all the
energies of their minds. Their tears had never been called forth by
tedious application to useless sciences. Their minds had never been
wearied by lessons of morality, superfluous to bosoms unconscious of
ill. They had never been taught not to steal, because every thing with
them was in common: or not to be intemperate, because their simple
food was left to their own discretion; or not to lie, because they had
nothing to conceal. Their young imaginations had never been terrified
by the idea that God has punishment in store for ungr