older than Emma Lindsay; but a more rational feeling had been roused in
her heart, and for once it predominated over this folly.

Margaret was not like her sister in the matter of romance and
abstraction from every-day scenes and pursuits, though she loved to
regard Susan as something wonderful, and show off her literary
productions. Margaret's foible, on the contrary, was too great a love
for the present world. Unfortunately, she had fixed her heart upon what
is too evanescent for the love of an immortal. Youth, beauty, and the
graces of fashion were the shadows at whose shrine she worshiped,
though the substance was gone. Thus precious time was spent in seeking
to repair its own breaches, and she saw not that they widened day by
day--saw not how the cunning device by which she sought to hide the
footprint of years, only left that foot-print more visible. God had
given both Margaret and Susan better food for the immortal mind, but
they, like many others, chose to feed upon the wind. No wonder that
they were ever unsatisfied. The plain people of that region, who
boasted of nothing superior to _common_ sense, regarded the Sliver
girls as curiosities. Some called them _soft_, and thought there was a
lack of head wisdom; many laughed about them; but no one, save Fanny
Brighton, laughed _at_ them. Their parents were highly esteemed; and it
may be a matter of wonder how they came to be what they were. The cast
of human character is usually taken in childhood--an important fact to
those charged with so responsible a trust; and it was during Margaret
and Susan's childhood, that a vain and sentimental lady sojourned for
two summers at their father's house. The unsuspecting farmer and his
wife never thought of examining the stock of books with which she
loaded the old case in the "fore-room." Having no time for reading
except Sundays, uncle Enoch never expected to get through "Barclay's
Apology," without neglecting his Bible, and this he had no intention of