"I have often asked it of myself, but never got any plain answer." "I do not see why you should find any difficulty in it," returned Hesper, with a shadow of interest.

"You know what you mean when you say to yourself you like this, or you do not like that." "How clever she is, too!" thought Mary; but she answered: "I don't think I ever say anything to myself about the poetry I read--not at the time, I mean.

If I like it, it drowns me; and, if I don't like it, it is as the Dead Sea to me, in which you know you can't sink, if you try ever so." Hesper saw nothing in the words, and began to fear that Mary was so stupid as to imagine herself clever; whereupon the fancy she had taken to her began to sink like water in sand.

The two were still on their feet, near the window--Mary, in her bonnet, with her back to it, and Hesper, in evening attire, with her face to the sunset, so that the one was like a darkling worshiper, the other like the radiant goddess.

But the truth was, that Hesper was a mere earthly woman, and Mary a heavenly messenger to her.