Those fits, alas! grew less and less frequent; for Hesper was on the downward incline; but, when the next came, after this interview, she found herself haunted, at a little distance, as it were, by a strange sense of dumb, invisible tending.

It did not once come close to her; it did not once offer her the smallest positive consolation; the thing was only this, that the essence of Mary's being was so purely ministration, that her form could not recur to any memory without bringing with it a dreamy sense of help.

Most powerful of all powers in its holy insinuation is _being_.

_To be_ is more powerful than even _to do_.

Action _may_ be hypocrisy, but being is the thing itself, and is the parent of action.