"No, indeed. If you know the way to send—that I must confess would puzzle me; but if you'll manage the sending, I'll manage the paying; and you shall have a French bonnet."
"Uncle!" said she, looking up at him.
"Oh, I'm not joking; I owe you a present, and I'll give you that."
"And if you do, I'll tell you what I'll do with it. I'll cut it into fragments, and burn them before your face. Why, uncle, what do you take me for? You're not a bit nice to-night to make such an offer as that to me; not a bit, not a bit." And then she came over from her seat at the tea-tray and sat down on a foot-stool close at his knee. "Because I'd have a French bonnet if I had a large fortune, is that a reason why I should like one now? if you were to pay four pounds for a bonnet for me, it would scorch my head every time I put it on."
"I don't see that: four pounds would not ruin me. However, I don't think you'd look a bit better if you had it; and, certainly, I should not like to scorch these locks," and putting his hand upon her shoulders, he played with her hair.
"Patience has a pony-phaeton, and I'd have one if I were rich; and I'd have all my books bound as she does; and, perhaps, I'd give fifty guineas for a dressing-case."
"Fifty guineas!"
"Patience did not tell me; but so Beatrice says. Patience showed it to me once, and it is a darling. I think I'd have the dressing-case before the bonnet. But, uncle—"
"Well?"
"You don't suppose I want such things?"