Cecil's Tryst Author:James Payn Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: room, whither I found Aunt Ben had already repaired, and was talking alone with my father. "Why, good gracious!" cried I, eloquent with pent-up wonder, "they ... more »are blackamoors!" "Hush, for shame!" exclaimed my aunt. "They are nothing of the sort; and if they are, it is not their fault." "But they are," said I.—"Are they not?" appealing to my father. He nodded gravely. "' Black as the bird that in the silent night Doth shake contagion from her sable wings.' The fact is—as perhaps we ought to have warned you, my boy—there is just a dash of the tar-brush in your cousins." I had indeed greatly exaggerated the swarthiness of their complexions, which was partly owing to their birth, but also to the effects of the Indian sun. They were not black, but black and tan, like terriers; still their colour could scarcely have astonished me more had it been magenta. CHAPTER III. Across the Way. Nature, as I have said, had cast my twin cousins, with the exception of sex, in the same mould. They were as like as peas—dried peas, for their swarthiness had that withered and yellow look which so often belongs to the Asiatic. Their voices were so similar, that it was impossible for the ear alone to decide who spoke; and even their handwritings defied the eye to discern that of the brother from that of the sister. Their mutual affection was, moreover, such, that they loved one another as themselves, and this bond united them more closely thanthe natural ligament that bound together the Siamese twins. And yet, curiously enough, we soon discovered that their dispositions were as opposite as the poles. Cecil's nature was impulsive, generous, and candid; that of his sister, secretive, proud, and unconciliatory. Even Aunt Ben, with whom (though she had her prejudices) no human bei...« less