yet seen each other. Their steps tottered as they advanced, and they were
forced, from time to time, to lean against the beds as they passed along.
Their strength was--rapidly failing them. Giddy with fear and pain, they
appeared to act almost mechanically. Alas! the orphans had been seized
almost at the same moment with the terrible symptoms of cholera. In
consequence of that species of physiological phenomenon, of which we have
already spoken--a phenomenon by no means rare in twins, which had already
been displayed on one or two occasions of their sickness--their
organizations seemed liable to the same sensations, the same simultaneous
accidents, like two flowers on one stem, which bloom and fade together.
The sight of so much suffering, and so many deaths, had accelerated the
development of this dreadful disease. Already, on their agitated and
altered countenances, they bore the mortal tokens of the contagion, as
they came forth, each on her own side, from the two subdivisions of the
room in which they had vainly sought their governess. Until now separated
by the partition, Rose and Blanche had not yet seen each other; but, when
at length their eyes met, there ensued a heart rending scene.




CHAPTER LVII.

THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.

To the charming freshness of the sisters' faces had succeeded a livid
pallor. Their large blue eyes, now hollow and sunk in, appeared of
enormous dimensions. Their lips, once so rosy, were now suffused with a
violet hue, and a similar color was gradually displacing the transparent
carmine of their cheeks and fingers. It was as if all the roses in their