"Well," said Panope, kindly, "can we do anything for you?"
"Lovely nymphs," said the merman, "have you seen a ship pass this way with one of your fair sisters on its prow?"
"One of _our_ sisters?" said Arethusa, a little haughtily. "That seems very unlikely."
"I assure you she is, my lady," said the merman, reverently but firmly. "She has her name, The Sea-nymph, written below her."
"He has lost his wits," said Panope, sighing.
"You don't mean that wooden figure-head?" cried Arethusa.
"Surely she is your sister," said the merman, looking at Cymodoce, who was more like the wooden nymph than the other two, and whose manners were always a little stiff and prim.
"My sister!" cried Cymodoce, quite bristling. "Am I related to a log of wood?"
Here Arethusa slyly pinched Panope behind Cymodoce's back, for the truth was Cymodoce had once been a wooden ship, and had been made into a nymph to save her from a conflagration. She never would allow, however, that this was a true story.
"No, of course there is nothing wooden about you, dear," said Panope, soothingly. "Don't be vexed. Let us help the poor boy if we can."
"He's very like a Triton I used to know," said Arethusa, aside.
"I saw a ship pass," said Panope, looking down at him with her kind blue eyes. "Such a big ship! Not like the ones I used to see here years ago, and it certainly had a wooden statue on the prow, but it was only a wooden image; it was not alive."
"How strange it is," thought the merman to himself, "that these three goddesses should be jealous of my beauty--just like three mortal mermaids."
"Jealous of that stick indeed!" cried Cymodoce, answering his thought.
"Men!" said Arethusa. "Panope, my darling, they are just the creatures they always were in the water or out of it."
"So it seems," said Panope, playing in the sand with her little pink toes like a mortal girl.
"I assure you, sir," said Cymodoce, gravely, "that you are under a serious mistake. That figure is a mere painted figure-head, quite incapable of a rational thought or instructive conversation."
"What we admire in woman is her affections, not her intellect," said the merman.
"Look at me!" said Arethusa; and the tall nymph stood up before him in all her immortal beauty and shook down her golden hair till it swept her ankles.