Neither of them knew it, but so it was; for the angels are essentially humble, and Hesper would have condescended to any angel out of her own class.
"I think I know good poetry by what it does to me," resumed Mary, thoughtfully, just as Hesper was about to pass to the business of the hour.
"Indeed!" rejoined Hesper, not less puzzled than before, if the word should be used where there was no effort to understand.

Poetry had never done anything to her, and Mary's words conveyed no shadow of an idea.
The tone of her _indeed_ checked Mary.

She hesitated a moment, but went on.
"Sometimes," she said, "it makes me feel as if my heart were too big for my body; sometimes as if all the grand things in heaven and earth were trying to get into me at once; sometimes as if I had discovered something nobody else knew; sometimes as if--no, not _as if_, for then I _must_ go and pray to God.

But I am trying to tell you what I don't know how to tell.

I am not talking nonsense, I hope, only ashamed of myself that I can't talk sense .-- I will show you what I have been doing about your dress." Far more to Hesper's surprise and admiration than any of her half-foiled attempts at the utterance of her thoughts, Mary, taking from her pocket the shape she had prepared, put it on herself, and, slowly revolving before Hesper, revealed what in her eyes was a masterpiece.
"But how clever of you!" she cried .-- Her own fingers had not been quite innocent of the labor of the needle, for money had long been scarce at Durnmelling, and in the paper shape she recognized the hand of an artist.--"Why," she continued, "you are nothing less than an accomplished dressmaker!" "That I dare not think myself," returned Mary, "seeing I never had a lesson." "I wish you would make my wedding-dress," said Hesper.
"I could not venture, even if I had the time," answered Mary.