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nobility; and Lady D----, their elder sister by many years, and sometime
married to a once well-known nobleman, was now their protectress. These
considerations, beside the fact that the young ladies were what is
usually termed heiresses, though not to a very great amount, secured to
them a high position in the best society which Ireland then produced.
The two young ladies differed strongly, alike in appearance and in
character. The elder of the two, Emily, was generally considered the
handsomer--for her beauty was of that impressive kind which never
failed to strike even at the first glance, possessing as it did all the
advantages of a fine person and a commanding carriage. The beauty of her
features strikingly assorted in character with that of her figure and
deportment. Her hair was raven-black and richly luxuriant, beautifully
contrasting with the perfect whiteness of her forehead--her finely
pencilled brows were black as the ringlets that clustered near them--and
her blue eyes, full, lustrous, and animated, possessed all the power and
brilliancy of brown ones, with more than their softness and variety of
expression. She was not, however, merely the tragedy queen. When she
smiled, and that was not seldom, the dimpling of cheek and chin, the
laughing display of the small and beautiful teeth--but, more than all,
the roguish archness of her deep, bright eye, showed that nature had not
neglected in her the lighter and the softer characteristics of woman.

Her younger sister Mary was, as I believe not unfrequently occurs in
the case of sisters, quite in the opposite style of beauty. She was
light-haired, had more colour, had nearly equal grace, with much more
liveliness of manner. Her eyes were of that dark grey which poets so
much admire--full of expression and vivacity. She was altogether a very
beautiful and animated girl--though as unlike her sister as the presence
of those two qualities would permit her to be. Their dissimilarity did
not stop here--it was deeper than mere appearance--the character of
their minds differed almost as strikingly as did their complexion.
The fair-haired beauty had a large proportion of that softness and
pliability of temper which physiognomists assign as the characteristics
of such complexions. She was much more the creature of impulse than of
feeling, and consequently more the victim of extrinsic circumstances
than was her sister. Emily, on the contrary, possessed considerable
firmness