I can see them now as
clearly as I saw them then, as I stood at the tinsmith's door in the
High Street of Oakford--let me see, how many years ago? ("Never mind,"
says my wife; "go on with the story, my dear," and I go on.)
The child who looked the older, but was, as I afterwards discovered,
the younger of the two, was also the less pretty. And yet she had a
sweet little face, hair like spun gold, and blue-grey eyes with dark
lashes. She wore a grey frock of some warm material, below which
peeped her indoors dress of blue. The outer coat had a quaint cape
like a coachman's, which was relieved by a broad white crimped frill
round her throat. Her legs were cased in knitted gaiters of white
wool, and her hands in the most comical miniatures of gloves. On her
fairy head she wore a large bonnet of grey beaver, with a frill
inside. (My wife explains that it was a "cap-front," adorned with
little bunches of ribbon, and having a cap attached to it, the whole
being put on separately before the bonnet. Details which seem to amuse
my little daughters, and to have less interest for my sons.) But it
was her sister who shone on my young eyes like a fairy vision. She
looked too delicate, too brilliant, too utterly lovely, for anywhere
but fairy-land.
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