We had spent a merry night of it. Our stars had paled their not ineffectual fires, only in the daylight; and while Dan Phoebus was yet rising, "jocund on the misty mountain tops," I was busy in adjusting my foot in the stirrup and mounting my good steed Priam, to find my way by a close cut, and through narrow Indian trails, to my lodgings in the little town of C----, on the very borders of Mississippi. There were a dozen of us, all merry larks, half mad with wine and laughter, and the ride of seven miles proved a short one. In less than two hours, I was snugly snoozing in my own sheets, and dreaming of the twin daughters of old Hansford Owens. Well might one dream of such precious damsels. Verily, they seemed, all of a sudden, to have become a part of my existence. They filled my thoughts, excited my imagination, and,--if it be not an impertinence to say any thing of the heart of a roving lad of eighteen,--then were they at the very bottom of mine.--Both of them, let me say,--for they were twins, and were endowed with equal rights by nature. I was not yet prepared to say what was the difference, if any, between their claims. One was fair, the other brown; one pensive, the other merry as the cricket of Venus. Susannah was meek as became an Elder's daughter; Emmeline so mischievous that she might well have worried the meekest of the saints in the calendar from his propriety and position. I confess, though I thought constantly of Susannah, I always looked after Emmeline the first. She was the brunette--one of your flashing, sparkling, effervescing beauties,--perpetually running over with exultation--brimful of passionate fancies that tripped, on tiptoe, half winged, through her thoughts. She was a creature to make your blood bound in your bosom,--to take you entirely off your feet, and fancy, for the moment, that your heels are quite as much entitled to dominion as your head. Lovely too,--brilliant, if not absolutely perfect in features--she kept you always in a sort of sunlight. She sung well, talked well, danced well--was always in air--seemed never herself to lack repose, and, it must be confessed, seldom suffered it to any body else. Her dancing was the crowning grace and glory. She was no Taglioni--not an Ellsler--I do not pretend that. But she was a born artiste. Every motion was a study. Every look was life. Her form subsided into the sweetest luxuriance of attitude, and rose into motion with some such exquisite buoyancy, as would become Venus issuing from the foam. Her very affectations were so naturally worn, that you at length looked for them as essential to her charm. I confess--but no! Why should I do anything so foolish?