“She might take you along. Good!” said the girl with the Roman nose. “Did she accept?”
“She did. Said she would stay three whole months. At the end of that time, she expects to marry a delicate clergyman with three grown daughters, and take the whole party to Europe.”
“And that is all the compensation you receive for thinking of others!” cried the girl with the Roman nose. “Shall you let her come?”
“I shall not. I shall tell her that unless she hears from me within two weeks, she may know that I am down with a threatened attack of scarlet fever. She has a horror of illness, and wild horses couldn’t drag her here after that. But I shall have an exciting time with my sire, if he ever finds it out!”
“Humph, your father may never find it out,” said the girl with the eyeglasses; “and if he did, you could simply say that you really thought you were getting scarlet fever, and only concealed the fact from him to save him anxiety.”
“Pardon me, but you forget that I am a younger daughter. Papa has already had so much experience with my sisters that I have to be very careful in my explanations. This thing of being the third daughter is as bad as marrying a widower—worse, for that is voluntary.”
“Not always—on the part of the widower,” said the blue-eyed girl. “Dear, dear, how queer some things are! I know a pair of twins, and one of them is called an old maid, the other a young widow. If anybody can explain—”
“Pshaw, I know a brother and sister who have hair of the same identical shade. He is called red-headed while she is a Titian blonde,” said the girl with the Roman nose.
“And I went to school with a girl who was always called snub-nosed by everybody but the man she married,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin; “he said her nose was ‘tip-tilted, like the petal of a flower.’ Can you explain that?”
“Yes,” said the president, shortly, “she has money. Oh, girls, I went to the photographer’s last week, and I haven’t had the courage even to snub my sister-in-law since I got the proofs. Indeed, sometimes I almost feel grateful to Tom for marrying me—though of course I don’t let him know that. You have no idea how I felt when—”