“I wish you’d come with me to the old Witch of the Sea,” she said. “Won’t you, please?”
“I’ll go to the ends of the ocean with you, miss, if you want me to,” said Moby Dick; “but what for?”
“Oh,” said the bridesmaid, looking straight in the eye which happened to be that side of the whale’s head, “I’m a friend of the family, you know. I’m very much attached to the girls and very fond of the professor. I should like to help them if I could, and I think the witch is a wise woman, and it wouldn’t do at all for the professor to go to her in his position, but it won’t make any difference to me and you. Will you come now? It isn’t far.”
“Of course I will,” said the whale. “Just sit on my head, and I’ll take you there in no time.”
Just then the bride’s sister came out into the garden.
“Are you going, dear?” she said to the bridesmaid.
“Yes, I think I shall. Mr. Dick will see me home,” said the other mermaid.
“It’s been rather forlorn,” sighed the bride’s sister. “To think of his loving a wooden thing!”
“I suppose he had a right to if he chose,” said the mermaid a little hastily. “I’m sure it’s nothing to me.”
The bride’s sister was not angry at all. She kissed her friend good-night, and when she and Dick had gone sat down and cried a little.