Even Hesper's wedding-dress was gone from her thoughts.

She was in her own world, and ready, for very, quietness of spirit, to go to sleep.

But she had not forgotten the delight of Hesper's presence; it was only that all relation between them was gone except such as was purely human.
"This reminds me so of some beautiful verses of Henry Vaughan!" she said, half dreamily.
"What do they say ?" drawled Hesper.
Mary repeated as follows: "'The frosts are past, the storms are gone, And backward life at last comes on.
And here in dust and dirt, O here, The Lilies of His love appear!'" "Whose did you say the lines were ?" asked Hesper, with merest automatic response.
"Henry Vaughan's," answered Mary, with a little spiritual shiver as of one who had dropped a pearl in the miry way.
"I never heard of him," rejoined Hesper, with entire indifference.
For anything she knew, he might be an occasional writer in "The Belgrave Magazine," or "The Fireside Herald." Ignorance is one of the many things of which a lady of position is never ashamed; wherein she is, it may be, more right than most of my readers will be inclined to allow; for ignorance is not the thing to be ashamed of, but neglect of knowledge.

That a young person in Mary's position should know a certain thing, was, on the other hand, a reason why a lady in Hesper's position should not know it! Was it possible a shop-girl should know anything that Hesper ought to know and did not?
It was foolish of Mary, perhaps, but she had vaguely felt that a beautiful lady like Miss Mortimer, and with such a name as Hesper, must know all the lovely things she knew, and many more besides.
"He lived in the time of the Charleses," she said, with a tremble in her voice, for she was ashamed to show her knowledge against the other's ignorance.
"Ah!" drawled Hesper, with a confused feeling that people who kept shops read stupid old books that lay about, because they could not subscribe to a circulating library.--"Are you fond of poetry ?" she added; for the slight, shadowy shyness, into which her venture had thrown Mary, drew her heart a little, though she hardly knew it, and inclined her to say something.
"Yes," answered Mary, who felt like a child questioned by a stranger in the road; "-- when it is good," she added, hesitatingly.
"What do you mean by good ?" asked Hesper--out of her knowledge, Mary thought, but it was not even out of her ignorance, only out of her indifference.

People must say something, lest life should stop.
"That is a question difficult to answer," replied Mary.