'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 would 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; now 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