"Sisters!" one would exclaim, and yet their complexions were strikingly dissimilar.

The blood, mantling darker in the veins of one, lent an olive tinge to the soft and wax-like surface of her skin, while the red upon her cheeks and lips presented an admixture of purple.

Her hair, too, was black; and a dark shading along the upper lip--a moustache, in fact--soft and silky as the tracery of a crayon, contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of her teeth.

Her eyes were black, large, and almond-shaped, with that expression which looks _over_ one; and her whole appearance formed a type of that beauty which we associate with the Abencerrage and the Alhambra.

This was evidently the elder.
The other was the type of a distinct class of beauty--the golden-haired blonde.