rates the far-famed curve of Hogarth.

Their features, too, were alike. "Sisters!" one would exclaim, and yet
their complexions were strikingly dissimilar. The blood, mantling
darker in the veins of one, lent an olive tinge to the soft and wax-like
surface of her skin, while the red upon her cheeks and lips presented an
admixture of purple. Her hair, too, was black; and a dark shading along
the upper lip--a moustache, in fact--soft and silky as the tracery of a
crayon, contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of her teeth. Her eyes
were black, large, and almond-shaped, with that expression which looks
_over_ one; and her whole appearance formed a type of that beauty which
we associate with the Abencerrage and the Alhambra. This was evidently
the elder.

The other was the type of a distinct class of beauty--the golden-haired
blonde. Her eyes were large, globular, and blue as turquoise. Her hair
of a chastened yellow, long and luxuriant; while her skin, less soft and
waxen than that of her sister, presented an effusion of roseate blushes
that extended along the snowy whiteness of her arms. These, in the sun,
appeared as bloodless and transparent as the tiny gold-fish that
quivered in her uplifted hand.

I was riveted to the spot. My first impulse was to retire, silently and
modestly, but the power of a strange fascination for a moment prevented
me. Was it a dream?

"_Ah! que barbara! pobrecito--ito--ito_!" (Ah! what a barbarian you
are! poor little thing!)

"_Comeremos_." (We shall eat it.)

"_Por Dios! no! echalo, Luz, o tirare la agua en sus ojos_." (Goodness!
no! fling it in, Luz, or I shall throw water in your eyes.) And the
speaker stooped as if to execute the threat.

"_Ya--no_," (Now I shall not), said Luz resolutely.

"_Guarda te_!" (Look out, then!)

The brunette placed her little hands close together, forming with their
united palms a concave surface, and commenced dashing water upon the
perverse blonde.

The latter instantly dropped the gold-fish, and retaliated.

An exciting and animated contest ensued. The bright globules flew
around their heads, and rolled down their glittering tresses, as from
the pinions of a swan; while their clear laughter rang out at intervals,
as one or the other appeared victorious.

A hoarse voice drew my attention from this interesting spectacle.
Looking whence it came, my eye rested upon a huge negress stretched
under a cocoa-tree, who had raised hersel