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.
“The poor dear!” she said.
Meanwhile Moby Dick and the bridesmaid were on their way to the old Witch of the Sea. She lived in a cave in a thick dark grove of seaweed. She was sitting before the door talking with a gossip of hers, one of the Salem witches, whose broomstick would carry her through the water as well as through the air. The broomstick, which was a spirited young one, was standing hitched at the door, impatiently stamping its stick part on the ground and switching the broom part about to keep off the little crabs.
“Ho! ho!” said the Salem witch. “Here’s a dainty young maiden indeed! I’m a great mind to stick a few pins in her.”
“You better hadn’t,” said Moby Dick, grimly, for he was not at all afraid of witches. “Ask the old lady any questions you like, my dear; nothing shall hurt you.”