they were not only school-mates, but fast friends. To give their mothers
their due, they did not lessen this intimacy by hints, or intimations of
any sort, but let the girls obey their own tastes, as if satisfied it
was quite sufficient for "professors of religion" to hate in their own
persons, without entailing the feeling on posterity. Anne and Bridget
consequently became warm friends, the two sweet, pretty young things
both believing, in the simplicity of their hearts, that the very
circumstance which in truth caused the alienation, not to say the
hostility of the elder members of their respective families, viz.
professional identity, was an additional reason why _they_ should love
each other so much the more. The girls were about two and three years
the juniors of Mark, but well grown for their time of life, and frank
and affectionate as innocence and warm hearts could make them. Each was
more than pretty, though it was in styles so very different, as
scarcely to produce any of that other sort of rivalry, which is so apt
to occur even in the gentler sex. Anne had bloom, and features, and fine
teeth, and, a charm that is so very common in America, a good mouth; but
Bridget had all these added to expression. Nothing could be more soft,
gentle and feminine, than Bridget Yardley's countenance, in its ordinary
state of rest; or more spirited, laughing, buoyant or pitying than it
became, as the different passions or feelings were excited in her young
bosom. As Mark was often sent to see his sister home, in her frequent
visits to the madam's house, where the two girls held most of their
intercourse, he was naturally enough admitted into their association.
The connection commenced by Mark's agreeing to be Bridget's brother, as
well as Anne's. This was generous, at least; for Bridget was an only
child, and it was no more than right to repair the wrongs of fortune in
this particular. The charming young thing declared that she would
"rather have Mark Woolston for her brother than any other boy in
Bristol; and that it was delightful to have the same person for a