"Pickles! Cauliflower, and cabbage, and little snippets of vegetables
floating in piquant sauce, in fat, square bottles. I make them in my
factory. If you went over to the States you'd see my placards on every
wall, and inside magazines, and on the back sheets of newspapers--a big,
fat man eating a plate of cold meat with Ward's unrivalled piquants by
his side. They used to be my father's: now they're mine. _I_ am the
Unrivalled Piquant Pickles. I run the factory. The profits grow more
e-normous every year. There's no other partners in it, only Me!"

If at the beginning of her speech the speaker had made an affectation of
humility, she certainly ended on a note of pride, and Pixie's admiration
was transparently evident.

"Think of that now! A whole factory, and pickles, too! I adore
pickles, especially the fat, cauliflowery bits. And to see one's own
name on the hoardings! I'd be so proud!"

"Honest Injun, you would? You don't feel proud and lofty because I'm in
trade, and had a grandfather who couldn't read, while _your_ ancestors
have been grandees for centuries? Many English people _do_, you know.
They have a way of looking at me as if I were a hundred miles away, and
stunted at that. And others who _do_ receive me don't trouble to hide
that it's for the sake of the dollars. A girl likes to be cared for for
_herself_: she wants people should judge her by what she _is_. It's a
big handicap, Pat-ricia, to be too rich."

"I'll take your word for it, me dear, having no experience," said Pixie
graciously; "but I'd like to be tried. As for caring--no one could help
it. I do already, and I've only known you three hours, and Esmeralda
said you were nice enough to be Irish, and it isn't the easiest thing in
the world to please _her_ fancy."

"She's a beautiful princess. She's been real sweet to me over here.
I'm crazy about her!" Honor affirmed in the slow, dragging voice which
went so quaintly with her exaggerated language. "But one Mrs Hilliard
don't make a world. You've got to be just as good to me as you know
how, Pat-ricia, for I've got no one belonging to me on this side nearer
than an elderly cousin, twice removed, and it's a lonesome feeling.

"You see, it isn't only what people think of _me_, it's the mean,
suspicious feelings I've gotten towards _them_, as the result of being
brought up an heiress. If I could tell you all I've endoored! The
things I've been told! The things I've over