will now turn a little while from myself, and give a brief history of
the twin brothers, as I learned it from my father's lips, and Richard's,
who narrated to me the story of _his_ father's life as he heard it in
the dungeon of the Tombs.

CHAPTER LVI.

Henry Gabriel and Gabriel Henry St. James, were born in the Highlands of
New York. Their father was of English extraction, though of American
birth; their mother the daughter of a French refugee, who had sought
shelter in the land of freedom from the storms of the Revolution. So the
elements of three nations mingled in their veins.

There was nothing remarkable in their childhood, but their resemblance
to each other, which was so perfect that their own mother was not able
to distinguish the one from the other. Perhaps either of them, seen
separately, would not have excited extraordinary interest, but together
they formed an image of dual beauty as rare as it was attractive. They
were remarkable for their fine physical development, their blooming
health, and its usual accompaniments, sunniness of temper, and gaiety of
spirits; but even in early childhood these twin-born bodies showed that
they were vitalized by far different souls. Their father was a
sea-captain; and while Gabriel would climb his knees and listen with
eager delight to tales of ocean life and stirring adventures, Henry,
seated at his mother's feet, with his hands clasped on her lap and his
eyes riveted on her face, would gather up her gently sparkling words in
his young heart, and they became a pavement of diamonds, indestructible
as it was bright and pure.

As they grew older, the master-passion of each became more apparent.
Gabriel made mimic boats and ships, and launched them on the bosom of a
stream which flowed back of their dwelling, an infant argosy freighted
with golden hopes. Henry drew figures on the sandy shore, of birds and
beasts and creeping things, and converted every possible material into
tablets for the impressions of his dawning genius. Gabriel was his
father's darling, Henry was mother's beloved. I said she could not
distinguish her twin-born boys; but when she looked into their eyes,
there was something in the earnest depths of Henry's, an answering
expression of love and sensibility, which she sought in vain in his
brother's. The soul of the sea-dreaming boy was not with her; it was
following the father on the foaming paths of ocean.

"My boys shall go with me on my next