They sat down--and in those gloomy forms there was something congenial to the shade and solitude of the place.
Apaecides was in the spring of his years, yet he seemed to have exhausted even more of life than the Egyptian; his delicate and regular features were worn and colorless; his eyes were hollow, and shone with a brilliant and feverish glare: his frame bowed prematurely, and in his hands, which were small to effeminacy, the blue and swollen veins indicated the lassitude and weakness of the relaxed fibres.

You saw in his face a strong resemblance to Ione, but the expression was altogether different from that majestic and spiritual calm which breathed so divine and classical a repose over his sister's beauty.

In her, enthusiasm was visible, but it seemed always suppressed and restrained; this made the charm and sentiment of her countenance; you longed to awaken a spirit which reposed, but evidently did not sleep.

In Apaecides the whole aspect betokened the fervor and passion of his temperament, and the intellectual portion of his nature seemed, by the wild fire of the eyes, the great breadth of the temples when compared with the height of the brow, the trembling restlessness of the lips, to be swayed and tyrannized over by the imaginative and ideal.

Fancy, with the sister, had stopped short at the golden goal of poetry; with the brother, less happy and less restrained, it had wandered into visions more intangible and unembodied; and the faculties which gave genius to the one threatened madness to the other.
'You say I have been your enemy,' said Arbaces, 'I know the cause of that unjust accusation: I have placed you amidst the priests of Isis--you are revolted at their trickeries and imposture--you think that I too have deceived you--the purity of your mind is offended--you imagine that I am one of the deceitful...' 'You knew the jugglings of that impious craft,' answered Apaecides; 'why did you disguise them from me ?--When you excited my desire to devote myself to the office whose garb I bear, you spoke to me of the holy life of men resigning themselves to knowledge--you have given me for companions an ignorant and sensual herd, who have no knowledge but that of the grossest frauds; you spoke to me of men sacrificing the earthlier pleasures to the sublime cultivation of virtue--you place me amongst men reeking with all the filthiness of vice; you spoke to me of the friends, the enlighteners of our common kind--I see but their cheats and deluders! Oh! it was basely done!--you have robbed me of the glory of youth, of the convictions of virtue, of the sanctifying thirst after wisdom.