“My pillow isn't dry yet, with the tears I shed for you, Dan,” said Minnie demurely.
“I shall have to countermand my mourning,” said Eunice, “and wear louder colours than ever. Unless,” she added, “Miss Pasmer changes her mind again.”
This divination of the past gave them all a chance for another laugh, and Dan's sisters began to reconcile themselves to the fact of his engagement, if not to Miss Pasmer. In what was abstractly so disagreeable there was the comfort that they could joke about his happiness; they had not felt free to make light of his misery when he was at home before. They began to ask all the questions they could think of as to how and when, and they assimilated the fact more and more in acquiring these particulars and making a mock of them and him.
“Of course you haven't got her photograph,” suggested Eunice. “You know we've never had the pleasure of meeting the young lady yet.”
“Yes,” Dan owned, blushing, “I have. She thought I might like to show it to mother: But it isn't—”
“A very good one—they never are,” said Minnie.
“And it was taken several years ago—they always are,” said Eunice.
“And she doesn't photograph well, anyway.”
“And this one was just after a long fit of sickness.”
Dan drew it out of his pocket, after some fumbling for it, while he tolerated their gibes.