It was now full moon, and these scenes
viewed during the clear nights, were indescribably beautiful.--
_Bullock's Journey to New York_.
* * * * *
IRISH TWINS.
The Miss Mac Taafs were both on the ground, and both standing enough in
profile, to give Lord Arranmore a full and perfect view of their figure,
without being seen by them. His first opinion was, that they were
utterly unchanged; and that like the dried specimens of natural history,
they had bidden defiance to time. Tall, stately, and erect, their
weather-beaten countenance and strongly marked features were neither
faded nor fallen in. The deep red hue of a frosty and vigorous senility
still coloured their unwrinkled faces. Their hair, well powdered and
pomatumed, was drawn up by the roots from their high foreheads, over
their lofty "systems;" and their long, lank necks rose like towers above
their projecting busts; which, with their straight, sticky, tight-laced
waists, terminating in the artificial rotundity of a half-dress
bell-hoop, gave them the proportions of an hour-glass. They wore grey
camlet riding habits, with large black Birmingham buttons (to mark the
slight mourning for their deceased brother-in-law): while petticoats,
fastened as pins did or did not their office, shewed more of the quilted
marseilles and stuff beneath, than the precision of the toilet required:
both of which, from their contact with the water of the bog, merited the
epithet of "Slappersallagh," bestowed on their wearers by Terence
O'Brien.
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