either; but as she felt and thought so she spoke out and acted, fearless even as she was unconscious of any wrong, defying misconstruction, and half inclined to doubt the possibility of evil in the minds of others, so foreign did it seem, and so impossible to her own natural and, as it were, instinctive sense of right. Yet although such in all respects as I have striven to depict them, the one all quick and flashing impulse, the other all reflective and considerate principle, it was most wonderful how seldom there was any clashing of opinion and diversity of judgment as to what was to be done, what left undone, between the lovely sisters. Marian would, it is true, often jump at once to conclusions, and act as rapidly upon them, at which the more reflective Annabel would arrive only after some consideration—but it did not occur more often that the one had reason to repent of her precipitation than the other of her over caution—neither, indeed, had much cause for remorse of this kind at all, for all the impulses of the one, all the thoughts and principles of the other, were alike pure and kindly. With words, however, it was not quite so; for it must be admitted that Marian oftentimes said things, how unfrequently soever she did aught, which she would willingly have recalled afterwards; not, indeed, that she ever said anything unkind or wrong in itself, and rarely anything that could give pain to another, unless that pain were richly merited indeed—but that she gradually came to learn, long before she learned to restrain her impulses, that it may be very often unwise to speak what in itself is wise—and very often, if not wrong, yet certainly imprudent and of evil consequences to give loud utterance even to right opinions. Such were the persons, such the dispositions of the fair heiresses of Ingleborough, at the time when they had attained the ages I have specified, and certainly, although their sphere of usefulness would have appeared at first sight circumscribed, and the range of their enjoyments very narrow, there rarely have been seen two happier or more useful beings than Annabel and Marian Hawkwood, in this wide world of sin and sorrow.