The Twins | Page 8

on in the well-worn path of
pleasant beauty; and so long as Nature's bounty continues to supply so
well the world we live in with large dark eyes, and other feminine
perfections, our Emily, at any rate, remains in fashion; and if she has
many pretty peers, let us at least not peevishly complain of them. A
graceful shape is, luckily, almost the common prerogative of female
youthfulness; a dimpled smile, a cheerful, winning manner, regular
features, and a mass of luxuriant brown hair--these all heroines
have--and so has our's.
But no heroine ever had yet Emily Warren's eyes; not identically only,
which few can well deny; but similarly also, which the many must be
good enough to grant: and very few heroes, indeed, ever saw their
equal; though, if any hereabouts object, I will not be so cruel or
unreasonable as to hope they will admit it. At first, full of soft light,
gentle and alluring, they brighten up to blaze upon you lustrously, and
fascinate the gazer's dazzled glance: there are depths in them that tell of
the unfathomable soul, heights in them that speak of the spirit's
aspirations. It is gentleness and purity, no less than sensibility and
passion, that look forth in such strange power from those windows of
the mind: it is not the mere beautiful machine, fair form, and pleasing
colours, but the heaven-born light of tenderness and truth, streaming
through the lens, that takes the fond heart captive. Charles, for one,
could not help looking long and keenly into Emily Warren's eyes; they
magnetized him, so that he might not turn away from them: entranced
him, that he would not break their charm, had he been able: and then
the long tufted eyelashes droop so softly over those blazing suns--that I
do not in the least wonder at Charles's impolite, perhaps, but still
natural involuntary stare, and his mute abstracted admiration: the poor
youth is caught at once, a most willing captive--the moth has burnt its
wings, and flutters still happily around that pleasant warming radiance.

How his heart yearned for something to love, some being worthy of his
own most pure affections: and lo! these beauteous eyes, true witnesses
of this sweet mind, have filled him for ever and a day with love at first
sight.
But gentle Charles was not the only conquest: the fiery Julian, too,
acknowledged her supremacy, bowed his stubborn neck, and yoked
himself at once, another and more rugged captive, to the chariot of her
charms. It was Caliban, as well as Ferdinand, courting fair Miranda. In
his lower grade, he loved--fiercely, coarsely: and the same passion,
which filled his brother's heart with happiest aspirations, and pure
unselfish tenderness towards the beauteous stranger, burnt him up as an
inward and consuming fire: Charles sunned himself in heaven's genial
beams, while Julian was hot with the lava-current of his own bad
heart's volcano.
It will save much trouble, and do away with no little useless mystery, to
declare, at the outset, which of these opposite twin-brothers our
dark-eyed Emily preferred. She was only seventeen in years; but an
Indian sky had ripened her to full maturity, both of form and feelings:
and having never had any one whom she cared to think upon, and let
her heart delight in, till Charles looked first upon her beauty
wonderingly, it is no marvel if she unconsciously reciprocated his
young heart's thought--before ever he had breathed it to himself.
Julian's admiration she entirely overlooked; she never thought him
more than civil--barely that, perhaps--however he might flatter himself:
but her heart and eyes were full of his fair contrast, the light seen
brighter against darkness; Charles all the dearer for a Julian. Intensely
did she love him, as only tropic blood can love; intently did she gaze on
him, when any while he could not see her face, as only those dark eyes
could gaze: and her mind, all too ignorant but greedy of instruction, no
less than her heart, rich in sympathies and covetous of love, went forth,
and fed deliciously on the intellectual brow, and delicate flushing cheek
of her noble-minded Charles. Not all in a day, nor a week, nor a month,
did their loves thus ripen together. Emily was a simple child of nature,
who had every thing to learn; she scarcely knew her Maker's name, till
Charles instructed her in God's great love: the stars were to her only

shining studs of gold, and the world one mighty plain, and men and
women soulless creatures of a day, and the wisdom of creation
unconsidered, and the book of natural knowledge close sealed up, till
Charles set out before his eager student the mysteries of earth and
heaven. Oh, those blessed hours of sweet teaching! when he led her
quick