Our Heroines.
Alvira was tall for her age; she had a graceful, majestic carriage,
and, although eminently handsome, there was a something in the tone
of her voice and in the impression of her features that reflected a
masculine firmness. Accomplished and intelligent, gay in society,
and affable to all, she was a general favorite amongst her school
companions. Yet she was at times of violent temper, and deep in the
recesses of her heart there lurked the germs of the strongest passions.
These passions, like lentils, grew with time and crept around that
heart, until they concealed the noble trunk they clung to and made it
their own. Alvira was often crimsoned with the blush of passion; a
gentle rebuke or a contradiction was sufficient to fire the hidden
mine and send to the countenance the flash of haughty indignation.
Whilst yet in her maidenhood she longed for distinction. Fame leaped
before her ardent imagination as a gilded bubble she loved to grasp.
Tales of knight-errantry and chivalry were always in her hands, and
bore their noxious fruit in the wild dreams of ambition they fired in
the girl's mind. Often, when alone with her sister, with book closed
in her hand and eye fixed on some article of furniture, her thoughts
would be away winning crowns of fame on battle-fields of her own
creation, urging on gallant knights to deeds of bravery, or arranging
with humbled foes the terms of peace. She would start from her reverie
with a sigh that told of the imprisonment of a bold, ambitious spirit
that felt itself destined to wield a needle rather than a sword.
Aloysia is a sweet, blooming girl of fourteen. It often happens that
fruits borne on the same stem are different in color and taste; so
these two sisters were different in personal appearance and character.
Nature seems to have presided in a special manner over the moulding
of Aloysia's exquisite frame. The symmetry of her person, hand and
foot of charming delicacy, azure eye and rosy cheek, garlanded with
nature's golden tresses, and the sweet expression of innocence in her
features, would suggest her at once as a model for one of Raphael's
Madonnas. Her disposition, too, comported with the beauty of her
person. She loved retirement, and read only books of the noblest
sentiment. The poets were familiar to her; she copied and committed
to memory the passages of exquisite beauty. There was one feature in
her character which bore a marked influence on her future destinies:
it was her love for her sister.
We do not believe at all times in the genuineness of brotherly or
sisterly love. Perhaps familiarity has deadened its keenness. Like
the appreciation of the sunlight which rushes with thrilling force on
the victim of blindness, separation or misfortune may rouse the dormant
affection and prove its nobility and its power; but in our experience
manifest fraternal charity is one of those things even the wise man
knew to be rare under the sun. Where we have been privileged to look
in behind the veil of the family circle, we are more convinced than
ever that fraternal affection an all the boasted nobility of sisterly
love dwindle down to a series of petty quarrels and jealousies as
painful as they are unchristian and unbecoming. The reserve, or rather
the hypocrisy of politeness, put on before strangers, is no criterion
of the inward domestic life. Some one has said of ladies, "A point
yielded or a pardon begged in public means so many hair-pullings
behind the scenes." But this is too sweeping; there are noble, glorious
exceptions in families where religion reigns, where fraternal charity
finds a congenial soil; for it blooms in the fragrance of the other
virtues, and is the first characteristic of a pious family. The world
around are told to look for this as a sign by which they are to
recognize the disciples of Him who loved so much.
Aloysia, in a true, genuine feeling of love, was bound in adamantine
chains to her sister. Time and fortune, that shatter all human
institutions and prove human feelings, consolidated the union of their
hearts and their destinies. A stranger on stronger proof of the
influence of sisterly affection could not be adduced; it dragged the
beautiful, blushing Aloysia from the sphere of girlhood, to follow
in the track of hypocrisy and of bloodshed so desperately trodden by
her brave sister.
Our tale opens when the two girls had finished their education and
were living in luxury and enjoyment. The days and hours passed merrily
by. They would read in the shade, play and sing on the harp, would
paint or work at wool, and in the afternoon, when the burning sun had
left the world to the shade of evening, they would drive out in a
magnificent attelage to the fashionable rendezvous of Paris.
Dream too bright to last! On the horizon is gathering the dark cloud
that will dim the sunlight of their bliss, and cause them, in the dark
and trying hour of trouble, to look back with the sigh of regret over
the brilliant hours of youthful enjoyment.