"Well, believe," said Hester.
"Come, come!" he rejoined with rudeness, "you may hope or think or believe what you like, but you have no business to act but on what you know."
"I suppose you never act where you do not know!" returned Hester. "You always know you will win the battle, kill the tiger, take the small-pox, and be the worse for it?"
"It's all very well for you to laugh!" returned the major; "but what is to become of us if you take the small-pox! Why, my dear cousin, you might lose every scrap of your good looks!"
"And then who on earth would care for me any more!" said Hester, with mock mournfulness, which brought a glimmer of the merry light back to the major's face.
"But really, Hester," he persisted, "this is most imprudent. It is your life, not your beauty only you are periling!"
"Perhaps," she answered.
"And the lives of us all!" added the major.
"Is the small-pox worse than a man-eating tiger?" she asked.
"Ten times worse," he answered. "You can fight the tiger, but you can't fight the small-pox. You really ought not to run such fearful risks."