Page:Francesca Carrara 1.pdf/45

Rh child, even though the summons were to my death-bed."

Robert's first impulse was to frame excuses for his brother; but what could he say, he who from childhood had so well known his reckless and selfish temper? We talk of the influence of education—in what does it consist? Here were two with the same blood flowing in their veins, born under the same roof, nursed by the same mother, play-mates in the same nursery, surrounded by the same scenes, pursuing the same studies, subject to the same rules, rewarded by the same indulgences—never till the age of eighteen having been parted for a day; and yet were these two as opposite as if they had never known one circumstance in common. Robert was grave, thoughtful, and affectionate; with the shyness always attendant on deep feeling, and the sensitiveness which is ever the best guard against wounding that of others—such have known the suffering too well to inflict it;—enthusiastic in his admirations, imaginative in his tastes, and therefore solitary in his habits.

Frank had made love to all the pretty girls in the neighbourhood, while Robert was dreaming, in the summer glades of the New Forest, of the ideal mistress, whose perfection was poetry. High