“I believe he’s a regular Bluebeard. Look at the little blue-black dots all over his chin. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s got half a dozen wives in a sort of Madame Tussaud’s Blue Chamber of Horrors, preserved in waxwork.”
“Pray don’t be so foolish, Fin.”
“Foolish? I don’t call it foolish to talk about our future husbands.”
“Fin!” cried her sister.
“Well, you see if that isn’t what pa means! I saw Aunt Matty smirking about it and petting the captain; and ma was almost in tears about their goings on.”
“Oh, Fin! don’t talk so,” said Tiny, sadly; “I shall never marry.”
“Till you say Yes at the altar, and the bevy of beauteous bridesmaids dissolve in tears,” laughed Fin. “I say, though, Tiny, I’m not going to be bought and sold like a heroine of romance. I wouldn’t have that Sir Felix—no, not if he was ten thousand baronets; and if you listen to Bluebeard, Tiny, you are no sister of mine.”
“Do you think papa seriously thinks anything of the kind?”
“I’m sure of it, dear, and—and—and—oh! Tiny, Tiny—I do feel so very, very miserable!”
To the surprise of her sister, she threw herself in her arms, and they indulged in the sweet feminine luxury of a good cry, ending by Fin declaring that she shouldn’t go back to her own room; and more than once, even in sleep, the pillows upon which the two pretty little flushed faces lay, side by side, were wet with tears that stole from beneath their eyelids in their troubled dreams.