in the same canopy, and both were laughing heartily at their being
sheltered together under an umbrella of their own invention. Those two
charming faces in the middle of a swelling petticoat, recalled to my
mind the children of Leda, enclosed in the same shell.

Their sole study was how they could please and assist one another; for
of all other things they were ignorant, and indeed could neither read
nor write. They were never disturbed by inquiries about past times, nor
did their curiosity extend beyond the bounds of their mountain. They
believed the world ended at the shores of their own island, and all
their ideas and all their affections were confined within its limits.
Their mutual tenderness, and that of their mothers, employed all the
energies of their minds. Their tears had never been called forth by
tedious application to useless sciences. Their minds had never been
wearied by lessons of morality, superfluous to bosoms unconscious of
ill. They had never been taught not to steal, because every thing with
them was in common: or not to be intemperate, because their simple
food was left to their own discretion; or not to lie, because they had
nothing to conceal. Their young imaginations had never been terrified
by the idea that God has punishment in store for ungrateful children,
since, with them, filial affection arose naturally from maternal
tenderness. All they had been taught of religion was to love it, and if
they did not offer up long prayers in the church, wherever they were, in
the house, in the fields, in the woods, they raised towards heaven their
innocent hands, and hearts purified by virtuous affections.

All their early childhood passed thus, like a beautiful dawn, the
prelude of a bright day. Already they assisted their mothers in the
duties of the household. As soon as the crowing of the wakeful cock
announced the first beam of the morning, Virginia arose, and hastened to