As soon as they could the miners retired.
Mabel Brewster was tall, of slender form and severely classic face. She had blue eyes, inherited from her mother, and that shade of hair which is dusky in a faint light, but which turns to gold in sunlight. Her complexion was very fair, her hands and arms were exquisite and her manners most winsome.
Mildred, her sister, was of quite another type. A year and a half younger than Mabel, she looked older than her sister. She had her father's black eyes, and like him, a prominent nose and resolute mouth. She was lower of statue and fuller of form than her sister. She had also a larger hand and stronger arm. Over all was poised a superb head, crowned with masses of tawny hair.
Standing in their simple mourning robes, with the afternoon sun shining around them, they looked as Helen and Cassandra might have looked, while yet the innocence and splendor of early womanhood were upon them.
Mabel was such a woman as men dream of and struggle to possess; Mildred was such an one as men die for when necessary, and do not count it a sacrifice.
MABEL AND MILDRED.
From the house the young men walked rapidly away, and so busy were they with their own thoughts that neither spoke until they entered a wooded park or common, and finding a rustic bench sat down.