Will my indulgent reader skip over ten years with me?--he might take a more dangerous leap--and enter yonder substantial-looking building, in which young ladies are “finished.” Passing by the long dining-hall, with its bare tavern-y looking table, and rows of bamboo chairs, let us ascend yonder marble stairs (for the school-house, let me tell you, was once an aristocratic old mansion), and turn down that long passage to the right. Now let us stop before No. 29. Remove your hat, if you please, because I am about to usher you into the presence of two very pretty girls, and though I do not approve of eaves-dropping, suppose we just step behind that friendly screen, and listen to what they are saying. CHAPTER XIX. “Fanny, what pains you are taking with your hair to-day!” said Kate. “Is this Cousin John who has written you such interminable letters from ‘El-Dorado,’ to turn out, after all, your lover? I hope not, for I fancy him some venerable Mentor, with a solemn face, and oracular voice, jealous as Bluebeard of any young man who looks at you. How old is this paragon?--handsome or ugly? I am dying to know.” “Thirty-six,” replied Fanny; “and as I remember him, with dark, curling hair, a broad, expansive brow, eyes one would never weary looking into, a voice singularly rich and sweet, and a form perfect but for a trifling stoop in the shoulders. That is my Cousin John,” said Fanny, drawing the comb through her ringlets. “Stoop in the shoulders! I thought as much,” mockingly laughed the merry Kate. “If he had ‘a stoop in the shoulders’ ten years ago, how do you suppose your Adonis looks now?” “It matters very little to me,” replied Fanny, with a little annoyance in her tone; “it matters very little to me, were he as ugly as Caliban.” “How am I to construe that?” asked Kate, crossing her two forefingers (“it matters very little to you”). “Does it mean that love is out of the question between you two, or that you would have him if Lucifer stood in your path?” “Construe it as it best suits you,” replied Fanny, with the most provoking nonchalance. “But ‘a stoop in the shoulders,’” persisted the tormenting Kate. “I don’t care to have a man’s face handsome, provided it is intelligent, but I do insist upon a fine form, correct morals, and a good disposition.” Fanny laughed--“I suppose you think to wind _your_ husband round your little finger, like a skein of silk.” “With Cupid’s help,” replied Kate, with mock humility. “Of course _you_ will be quite perfect;--never, for instance, appear before your husband in curl papers, or slip-shod?” asked Fanny; “never make him eat bad pies or puddings?” “That depends,” answered Kate, “if he is tractable--not; if not--why not?” “You will wink at his cigars?” “He might do worse.” “You will patronize his moustache?”