CHAPTER XIX.
“Fanny, what pains you are taking with your hair to-day!” said Kate. “Is this Cousin John who has written you such interminable letters from ‘El-Dorado,’ to turn out, after all, your lover? I hope not, for I fancy him some venerable Mentor, with a solemn face, and oracular voice, jealous as Bluebeard of any young man who looks at you. How old is this paragon?—handsome or ugly? I am dying to know.”
“Thirty-six,” replied Fanny; “and as I remember him, with dark, curling hair, a broad, expansive brow, eyes one would never weary looking into, a voice singularly rich and sweet, and a form perfect but for a trifling stoop in the shoulders. That is my Cousin John,” said Fanny, drawing the comb through her ringlets.
“Stoop in the shoulders! I thought as much,” mockingly laughed the merry Kate. “If he had ‘a stoop in the shoulders’ ten years ago, how do you suppose your Adonis looks now?”
“It matters very little to me,” replied Fanny, with a little annoyance in her tone; “it matters very little to me, were he as ugly as Caliban.”
“How am I to construe that?” asked Kate, crossing her two forefingers (“it matters very little to you”). “Does it mean that love is out of the question between you two, or that you would have him if Lucifer stood in your path?”
“Construe it as it best suits you,” replied Fanny, with the most provoking nonchalance.
“But ‘a stoop in the shoulders,’” persisted the tormenting Kate. “I don’t care to have a man’s face handsome, provided it is intelligent, but I do insist upon a fine form, correct morals, and a good disposition.”
Fanny laughed—“I suppose you think to wind your husband round your little finger, like a skein of silk.”
“With Cupid’s help,” replied Kate, with mock humility.
“Of course you will be quite perfect;—never, for instance, appear before your husband in curl papers, or slip-shod?” asked Fanny; “never make him eat bad pies or puddings?”
“That depends,” answered Kate, “if he is tractable—not; if not—why not?”
“You will wink at his cigars?”
“He might do worse.”
“You will patronize his moustache?”
“If he will my snuff-box,” said Kate, laughing. “Heigho—I feel just like a cat in want of a mouse to torment. I wish I knew a victim worthy to exercise my talents upon.”
“Talons, you mean,” retorted Fanny—“I pity him.”
“He would get used to it,” said Kate; “the mouse—the husband, you know—I should let him run a little way, and then clap my claws on him. I’ve seen it tried; it works like a charm.”
“Kate, why do you always choose to wear a mask?” asked Fanny; “why do you take so much pains to make a censorious world believe you the very opposite of what you are?”
“Because paste passes as current as diamond; because I value the world’s opinion not one straw; because if you own a heart, it is best to hide it, unless you want it trampled on. But I don’t ask you to subscribe to all this, Fanny, with that incomparable Cousin John in your thoughts; there he is—there’s the door-bell—Venus! how you blush! but ‘a stoop in the shoulders.’ How can you, Fanny? Thirty-six years old, too—Lord bless us!”