"I'd like, if I dared, to put my hand on your cheek and give you a good slap for being such a goose."
"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—"