from the very difference of their minds, and for her very imperfections. For Agnes was all gay vivacity, and petulance, and fire--so that her young companions, who sportively named Blanche the icicle, had christened her the sunbeam; and, in truth, if the first name were ill chosen, the second seemed to be an inspiration; for like a sunbeam that touched nothing but to illuminate it, like a sunbeam she played with all things, smiled on all things in their turn--like a sunbeam she brought mirth with her presence, and after her departure, left a double gloom behind her. More dazzling than Blanche, she made her impression at first sight, and so long as the skies were clear, and the atmosphere unruffled, the sunbeam would continue to gild, to charm, to be worshiped. But if the time of darkness and affliction came, the gay sunbeam held aloof, while the poor icicle, melted from its seeming coldness, was ever ready to weep for the sorrows of those who had neglected her in the days of their happiness. Unused to yield, high-spirited when crossed, yet carrying off even her stubbornness and quick temper by the brilliancy, the wit, the lively and bold audacity which she cast around them, Agnes ruled in her circle an imperious and despotic queen; while her slaves, even as they trembled before her half sportive but emphatic frown, did not suspect the sceptre of the tyrant beneath the spell of the enchantress. Agnes, in one word, was the idol of the rich and gay; Blanche was the saint of the poor, the lowly, the sick, and those who mourn. It may be that the peculiarity of her position, the neglect which she had always experienced from her father, and mediately from the hirelings of the household, ever prompt to pander to the worst feelings of their superiors--the consciousness that born co-heiress with her sister, she was doomed to sink into the insignificance of an undowered and uncared-for girl, had tended in some degree to form the character which Agnes had ever borne, and which alone she had displayed, until the period when my tale commences. It may be that the consciousness of wrong endured, had hardened a heart naturally soft and tender, and rendered it unyielding and rebellious--it may be that injustice, endured at the hands of hirelings in early years, had engendered a spirit of resistance, and armed her mind and quickened her tongue against the world, which, as she fancied, wronged her. It may be, more than all, that a secret, perhaps an unconscious jealousy of her sister's superior advantages, not in the wretched sense of worldly wealth or position, but of the love and reverence of friends and kindred, had embittered her young soul, and caused her to cast over it a veil of light and wild demeanor, of free speech, and daring mirth, which had by degrees grown into habits, and become part and parcel of her nature.