Cecilia immediately produced the box in which she kept her treasure, and emptying it upon the table, she began to count the shillings; alas! there were but six shillings.
"How provoking!" said she. "Then I can't have it—where's the mandarin? O I have it," said she, taking it up, and looking at it with the utmost disgust. "Is this the same that I had before?"
"Yes, Miss, the very same," replied the pedlar, who, during this time, had been examining the little box out of which Cecilia had taken her money; it was of silver.
"Why, ma'am," said he, "since you've taken such a fancy to the piece, if you've a mind to make up the remainder of the money, I will take this here little box, if you care to part with it."
Now this box was a keepsake from Leonora to Cecilia.
"No," said Cecilia hastily, blushing a little, and stretching out her hand to receive it.
"Oh, Miss!" said he, returning it carelessly. "I hope there's no offence; I meant but to serve you, that's all. Such a rare piece of china-work has no cause to go a begging," added he, putting the Flora deliberately into the case; then turning the key with a jerk, he let it drop into his pocket: and lifting up his box by the leather straps, he was preparing to depart.
"Oh, stay one minute!" said Cecilia, in whose mind there had passed a very warm conflict during the pedlar's harangue. "Louisa would so like this Flora," said she, arguing with herself; "besides, it would be so generous in me to give it to her instead of that ugly mandarin; that would be doing only common justice, for I promised it to her, and she expects it. Though, when I come to look at this mandarin, it is not even so good as hers was; the gilding is all rubbed off, so that I absolutely must buy this for her. O yes, I will, and she will be so delighted! And then every body will say it is the prettiest thing they ever saw, and the broken mandarin will be forgotten forever."
Here Cecilia's hand moved, and she was just going to decide: "O! But stop," said she to herself; "consider Leonora gave me this box, and it is a keepsake. However, now we have quarreled, and I dare say that she would not mind my parting with it; I'm sure that I should not care if she was to give away my keepsake the smelling bottle, or the ring which I gave her. So what does it signify; besides, is it not my own, and have I not a right to do what I please with it?"