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56 '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 brood 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 the clergyman tells you to hate riches. But though the clergyman tells you so, he is not the less anxious to get rich himself.'