In the water, and near the jet, were two beautiful girls clothed in a sort of sleeveless, green tunic, loosely girdled. They were immersed to the waist. So pellucid was the water that their little feet were distinctly visible at the bottom, shining like gold.
Luxuriant hair fell down in broad flakes, partially shrouding the snowy development of their arms and shoulders. Their forms were strikingly similar—tall, graceful, fully developed, and characterised by that elliptical line of beauty that, in the female form more than in any other earthly object, illustrates the far-famed curve of Hogarth.
Their features, too, were alike. “Sisters!” one would exclaim, and yet their complexions were strikingly dissimilar. The blood, mantling darker in the veins of one, lent an olive tinge to the soft and wax-like surface of her skin, while the red upon her cheeks and lips presented an admixture of purple. Her hair, too, was black; and a dark shading along the upper lip—a moustache, in fact—soft and silky as the tracery of a crayon, contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of her teeth. Her eyes were black, large, and almond-shaped, with that expression which looks over one; and her whole appearance formed a type of that beauty which we associate with the Abencerrage and the Alhambra. This was evidently the elder.
The other was the type of a distinct class of beauty—the golden-haired blonde. Her eyes were large, globular, and blue as turquoise. Her hair of a chastened yellow, long and luxuriant; while her skin, less soft and waxen than that of her sister, presented an effusion of roseate blushes that extended along the snowy whiteness of her arms. These, in the sun, appeared as bloodless and transparent as the tiny gold-fish that quivered in her uplifted hand.
I was riveted to the spot. My first impulse was to retire, silently and modestly, but the power of a strange fascination for a moment prevented me. Was it a dream?
“Ah! que barbara! pobrecito—ito—ito!” (Ah! what a barbarian you are! poor little thing!)
“Comeremos.” (We shall eat it.)
“Por Dios! no! echalo, Luz, ó tirare la agua en sus ojos.” (Goodness! no! fling it in, Luz, or I shall throw water in your eyes.) And the speaker stooped as if to execute the threat.
“Ya—no,” (Now I shall not), said Luz resolutely.
“Guarda te!” (Look out, then!)