CHAPTER VI.

THE first epoch of our sweet wild life has

ended we are now in our teens.

The thirteenth

year of our twin-life has closed.

Now the girl has two young lovers; but the boy has only his old sister-love.

I should think that in the life of a boy there is far less of mind-history to look back upon than that of a girl. That history, in woman's nature, begins, and, perhaps, ends much earlier.

Two boys were at this time the constant comrades of the twins, and both were the devoted servants of Magdalene St. Pierre. One of these, about four years our senior, was named

Walter Greville, the other, a month or two older, was Augustus Wilton. Like ourselves they were both of English families, located in Ireland. Colonel Wilton's grounds joined at one side the verge of our beautiful wood; and poor Walter Greville's stepfather had taken, while I was at Miss La Mort's, a wild-looking white house, bleak and comfortless in aspect, perched on the top of a hill about a mile distant, and known simply by the title of the White House. Mr. Greville of the White House being a man whose furious temper and unpleasant disposition rendered him a sort of bugbear in his neighbourhood, in which he did not possess any landed property to afford an excuse for his residence.

Colonel Wilton had not much, but they were considered to be high people, and ranked as such in our county.

Nevertheless I had always a great, though very secret respect for Walter Greville, and only amused myself with Augustus Wilton.

Old people always think the world is sadly changed from what it was in their youth. In some respects I am obliged to think it must have

changed for the better, since my bright youth has passed away for now few persons would believe that in a fit of jealousy, these two boys, when not fifteen, actually went out with real loaded pistols to fight a duel.

A duel was then a very common affair; the result of an unguarded word; an accidental movement, of an incident that would now be set right by the careless and smiling words—" I beg your pardon." But our boys fancied there was a deeper wrong to redress; they had loaded pistols and measured ground, but they dispensed with seconds. Fortunately one of our servant men, who had instigated and maintained the feud between them, had cognizance of this affair of honour, and placed some labourers behind a hedge to watch them, by whom at the critical moment they were seized and privately conducted before Colonel Wilton, who, unfortunately for them, being one of the greatest duellists of his day, was less disposed than they expected to reward them for their timely prevention.

Walter Greville affirmed that having deliberately insulted Wilton, he was obliged to give

him the satisfaction of a gentleman, but that he never meant to take his life, and had resolved to fire in the air.

Wilton's father boasted of his son's spirit, and the little man strutted about with the consciousness of the farm yard conqueror, and sneeringly declared he had had no intention of firing at the sky.

From that time my sentiments towards that youth began to assume the tone of dislike.

Dislike in the womanly mind may be got over; changed, perhaps, into a sentiment the most opposite; but if in her dislike there mingle the least shade of contempt towards its object, and that object be not of her own sex, it is irreversible.

As Wilton would not aim at the sky, I resolved to put an end to duelling between them. My will, I believed to be law, and so, as I walked in the garden with Master Augustus, I told him I did not wish him to fight again with Walter Greville.

"Not if he behaves himself properly," he answered, "and does not interfere with me again: but if he does "—and the would-be hero twitched

off the head of one of my pet

stroke of his cane, to show me,

flowers with a

I suppose, what

should be poor Walter's fate, if he did not behave himself properly.

I met Walter afterwards, as usual, in his solitary haunts, and said the same to him. The boy looked at me earnestly, as if trying to know if it were for Wilton's sake or his I felt this anxiety.

"No matter," he said, after a slight expression of this doubt. "If you wish it, Magda, I will not hurt him, let us quarrel as we may."

These boys were as unlike in person as in disposition. Walter was not considered hand some; he was tall and very large made his features were strongly marked; his hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, were very thick and very black, and the eyes of a deep grey, looking also at times, and especially when any emotion was aroused, to be as black as night: his face was so brown, that one might think its complexion had been formed beneath a southern sun; and the expression of his countenance was generally grave, almost to melancholy.