"I don't know how it was, but little Rosamond never showed the slightest effect of her mother's fearful experience, while Anne, poor little Anne, not only will bear, as long as she lives, a terrible birthmark, but her whole character seemed to be affected by it. Whether it was the shock to her mother's entire nervous system, or whether it was because she was not like other children, I can't tell, but she was painfully, almost morbidly, shy and retiring. She came down here to school only when she was forced to do so, and the rest of the time she spent with her father, whom she positively adored. I think the fact that he was blind and could not see how badly she was disfigured may have had something to do with it, for on this point she was abnormally sensitive and self-conscious. I don't believe, strange as it may seem, that her father ever knew anything about it. There was no necessity, and I can't think any one would have been cruel enough to tell him. The few times I saw them together he showed no consciousness that there was anything amiss with his little favourite, Anne. He would stroke her smooth little face and call her his 'beautiful, little, dear girl.' In fact, so far as he could tell, there was no striking difference in the appearance of the two children, for in feature they were almost exactly alike, as you may be able to see from these photographs." Peter studied them again, as they lay, side by side, in the warm glow of the lamp. It had not struck him before, but as he compared them, feature by feature, he could see that in childhood, at least, the two little twin sisters must have looked startlingly alike, though even at that time the expression of the two faces was strikingly dissimilar. There was the same thick, rich, dark hair, the same smooth, broad brow, the same delicate modelling of feature, but in the case of Mary--(Rosamond, he corrected himself)--the eyes and mouth were laughing, careless, and gay, while Anne's were serious and quiet--almost tragic--a thing not good to see in one so young. "All kinds of possibilities there," thought Peter, with a slight shake of the head. "Plenty of intelligence and nervous force--a kind of courage, too, I should imagine, with a strong little chin like that.... The devil's own lay-out for a girl, handicapped as she was----" Walter Lord, looking at the portraits and not at Peter, did not notice his abstraction.