and disgust to break out to their
annoyance, yet was there no gleam of paternal satisfaction in his sad
eye, no touch of paternal pride in his vexed heart, as he looked upon
their graceful forms, and noted their growing beauties.

And yet they were a pair of whom the haughtiest potentate on earth
might have been proud, and with justice.

Blanche and Agnes Fitz-Henry were at this time in their eighteenth and
seventeenth years--but one summer having passed between their births,
and their mother having died within a few hours after the latter saw
the light.

They were, indeed, as lovely girls as the sun of merry England shone
upon; and in those days it was still _merry_ England, and famous then
as now for the rare beauty of its women, whether in the first dawn of
girlhood, or in the full-blown flush of feminine maturity.

Both tall, above the middle height of women, both exquisitely formed,
with figures delicate and slender, yet full withal, and voluptuously
rounded, with the long taper hands, the small and shapely feet and
ankles, the swan-like necks, and classic heads gracefully set on,
which are held to denote, in all countries, the predominance of gentle
blood; when seen at a distance, and judged by the person only, it
would have been almost impossible to distinguish the elder from the
younger sister.

But look upon them face to face, and never, in all respects, were two
girls of kindred race so entirely dissimilar. The elder, Blanche, was,
as her name denotes, though ladies' names are oftentimes misnomers, a
genuine English blonde. Her abundant and beautiful hair, trained to
float down upon her snowy shoulders in silky masses of unstudied
curls, was of the lightest golden brown. There was not a shade of red
in its hues, although her complexion was of that peculiarly dazzling
character which is common to red-haired persons; yet when the sun
shone on its glistening waves, so brilliantly did the golden light
flash from it, that you might almost have imagined there was a circlet
of living glory above her clear white brow.

Her eyebrows and eyelashes were many shades darker than her hair,
relieving her face altogether from that charge of insipidity which is
so often, and for the most part so truly, brought against fair-haired
and fair-featured beauties. The eyes themselves, which those long
lashes shrouded, were of the deepest violet blue; so deep, that at
first sight you would have deemed them black, but for the so