The spring is the pleasantest of the seasons; and the young of most
animals, though far from being completely fashioned, afford a more
agreeable sensation than the full grown; because the imagination is
entertained with the promise of something more, and does not acquiesce in
the present object of the sense.--_Burke on the Sublime_.


I am inclined to agree with Francis Galton in believing that education and
environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone, and that
most of our qualities are innate.--_Darwin_.




THE HEAVENLY TWINS.

CHAPTER I.


At nineteen Evadne looked out of narrow eyes at an untried world
inquiringly. She wanted to know. She found herself forced to put prejudice
aside in order to see beneath it, deep down into the sacred heart of
things, where the truth is, and the bewildering clash of human precept
with human practice ceases to vex. And this not of design, but of
necessity. It was a need of her nature to know. When she came across
something she did not understand, a word, a phrase, or an allusion to a
phase of life, the thing became a haunting demon only to be exorcised by
positive knowledge on the subject. Ages of education, ages of hereditary
preparation had probably gone to the making of such a mind, and rendered