"Do; do, Trichy: you shall tread on me, or slap me, or kiss me;
whichever you like."

"I can't tell you how vexed I am," said Beatrice; "I wanted to
arrange something."

"Arrange something! What? arrange what? I love arranging. I fancy
myself qualified to be an arranger-general in female matters. I
mean pots and pans, and such like. Of course I don't allude to
extraordinary people and extraordinary circumstances that require
tact, and delicacy, and drawbacks, and that sort of thing."

"Very well, Mary."

"But it's not very well; it's very bad if you look like that. Well,
my pet, there I won't. I won't allude to the noble blood of your
noble relatives either in joke or in earnest. What is it you want to
arrange, Trichy?"

"I want you to be one of Augusta's bridesmaids."

"Good heavens, Beatrice! Are you mad? What! Put me, even for a
morning, into the same category of finery as the noble blood from
Courcy Castle!"

"Patience is to be one."

"But that is no reason why Impatience should be another, and I should
be very impatient under such honours. No, Trichy; joking apart, do
not think of it. Even if Augusta wished it I should refuse. I should
be obliged to refuse. I, too, suffer from pride; a pride quite as
unpardonable as that of others: I could not stand with your four
lady-cousins behind your sister at the altar. In such a galaxy they
would be the stars and I--"

"Why, Mary, all the world knows that you are prettier than any of
them!"

"I am all the world's very humble servant. But, Trichy, I should
not object if I were as ugly as the veiled prophet and they all as
beautiful as Zuleika. The glory of that galaxy will be held to depend
not on its beauty, but on its birth. You know how they would look at
me; how they would scorn me; and there, in church, at the altar, with
all that is solemn round us, I could not return their scorn as I
might do elsewhere. In a room I'm not a bit afraid of them all." And
Mary was again allowing herself to be absorbed by that feeling of
indomitable pride, of antagonism to the pride of others, which she
herself in her cooler moments was the first to blame.

"You often say, Mary, that that sort of arrogance should be despised
and passed over without notice."

"So it should, Trichy. I tell you that as a clergyman tells you to
hate riches. But though the clergyman tells you so, he is not the
less anxious to be rich himself."

"I particularly wish you to be one of Augusta's