My sister!—­well may I linger over your beloved name in such a record as this.  A little farther on, and the darkness of crime and grief will encompass me; here, my recollections of you kindle like a pure light before my eyes—­doubly pure by contrast with what lies beyond.  May your kind eyes, love, be the first that fall on these pages, when the writer has parted from them for ever!  May your tender hand be the first that touches these leaves, when mine is cold!  Backward in my narrative, Clara, wherever I have but casually mentioned my sister, the pen has trembled and stood still.  At this place, where all my remembrances of you throng upon me unrestrained, the tears gather fast and thick beyond control; and for the first time since I began my task, my courage and my calmness fail me.

It is useless to persevere longer.  My hand trembles; my eyes grow dimmer and dimmer.  I must close my labours for the day, and go forth to gather strength and resolution for to-morrow on the hill-tops that overlook the sea.

V.

My sister Clara is four years younger than I am.  In form of face, in complexion, and—­except the eyes—­in features, she bears a striking resemblance to my father.  Her expressions however, must be very like what my mother’s was.  Whenever I have looked at her in her silent and thoughtful moments, she has always appeared to freshen, and even to increase, my vague, childish recollections of our lost mother.  Her eyes have that slight tinge of melancholy in their tenderness, and that peculiar softness in their repose, which is only seen in blue eyes.  Her complexion, pale as my father’s when she is neither speaking nor moving, has in a far greater degree than his the tendency to flush, not merely in moments of agitation, but even when she is walking, or talking on any subject that interests her.  Without this peculiarity her paleness would be a defect.  With it, the absence of any colour in her complexion but the fugitive uncertain colour which I have described, would to some eyes debar her from any claims to beauty.  And a beauty perhaps she is not—­at least, in the ordinary acceptation of the term.

The lower part of her face is rather too small for the upper, her figure is too slight, the sensitiveness of her nervous organization is too constantly visible in her actions and her looks.  She would not fix attention and admiration in a box at the opera; very few men passing her in the street would turn round to look after her; very few women would regard her with that slightingly attentive stare, that steady depreciating scrutiny, which a dashing decided beauty so often receives (and so often triumphs in receiving) from her personal inferiors among her own sex.  The greatest charms that my sister has on the surface, come from beneath it.