3-017-285 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Foster Sisters", by John Bostock, in the Manchester Exhibition, 1865. Engraving of a painting. 'What a contrast there is between these two maidens, though of the same age, fostered by the same mother's care, nursed in the same bosom, and nourished at the same breast! The one is buxom and strong, her cheek rosy and round; the other is feeble and faint, her cheek wasted and wan, except where tinted with the unearthly hectic flush of consumption. The one is afflicted, stricken indeed unto death; the other has assumed the divine office of consoler, and reads from the Word of Life...Probably she is the daughter of the neighbouring squire; while the poor, afflicted girl may with equal likelihood be the child of the humble cottager - that squire's tenant...What...must be the emotion of the aged couple as they contemplate these foster-sisters and think of the fate that has selected, and will tear from them, their own darling - their own, their only daughter? What must be the anguish of her who has performed a mother's duty to both, and whose ever-watchful care is even now manifested by her seeking to adjust the pillow to support more comfortably that drooping head?' From "Illustrated London News", 1865.