Page:The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance 1832.pdf/107

Rh resting couple ; and proud, proud were they of their sons. On the visit in question they brought with them their only other child Benjamin, who was about two years younger than the twins ; and so taken was he with the establishment at which his seniors were placed, having seen it under every sort of sunshine, that he fain would have been left with us. But his parents would not part with the whole at once, even for a definite period, and took home with them their youngest treasure. Alas ! little Benjamin was not long blessed with such inestimable guardians ; for six weeks after the above-mentioned visit, he and his brothers were parentless, a virulent fever speedily snatching the captain and his lady from this uncertain sphere. Benjamin now became a fellow-scholar at our academy ; everything, from the day of the foot-ball contest, seeming to serve to render the Dangerfields objects of greater respect and observance ; but this was not all,-everything appeared to have cemented the twins more closely, and to be wrapping them up in a deeper devotion to their gentle abstractions the longer they were known. Benjamin might be said to afford them their principal diversion, partly on account of the care which he engrossed, and the vivacity he possessed. The boy had been a good deal spoiled ; he was, besides, a bit of a " Pickle," and as remarkably different in temperament and taste from the twins as they were alike. Benjamin was a boy for active sports, restless and clever. There was no keeping him from strolling among plantations , from climbing trees, from adventurous swimming in the formidable river close to our school. These propensities cost him dear ; the interesting and really promising youth was drowned when none were near to give the alarm or lend assistance. If ever circumstances seemed to conspire to bind brother and brother in one indissoluble bond, to extend over life and throughout every ramification of life's concerns, these had been experienced by Edward and Oliphant Dangerfield. In regard to thoughtfulness, too, they exhibited extraordinary examples, if one might judge from their solitary twinship-habits and the books they began assiduously to study, or at least to read. A person who had not the closest means of observing them, would have pronounced the pair, men before their time. To others, however, subtle influences might be detected which threatened to have a most baneful effect upon their feelings, principles, and lives. I first discovered (for to me they were not always shy) K FEB. 1839.