Nevertheless the sorely whelmed divine thing in her had uttered a feeble sigh of incipient longing after the real; Mary had begun to draw out the love in her; while her conventional judgment justified the proposed extraordinary proceeding with the argument of the endless advantages to result from having in the house, devoted to her wishes, a young woman with an absolute genius for dressmaking; one capable not only of originating in that foremost of arts, but, no doubt, with a little experience, of carrying out also with her own hands the ideas of her mistress.

No more would she have to send for the dressmaker on every smallest necessity! No more must she postpone confidence in her appearance, that was, in herself, until Sepia, dressed, should be at leisure to look her over! Never yet had she found herself the best dressed in a room: now there would be hope! Nothing, however, was clear in her mind as to the position she would have Mary occupy.

She had a vague feeling that one like her ought not to be expected to undertake things befitting such women as her maid Folter; for between Mary and Folter there was, she saw, less room for comparison than between Folter and a naked Hottentot.

She was incapable, at the same time, of seeing that, in the eyes of certain courtiers of a high kingdom, not much known to the world of fashion, but not the less judges of the beautiful, there was a far greater difference between Mary and herself than between herself and her maid, or between her maid and the Hottentot.

For, while the said beholders could hardly have been astonished at Hesper's marrying Mr.Redmain, there would, had Mary done such a thing, have been dismay and a hanging of the head before the face of her Father in heaven.
"Come and live with me, Miss Marston," said Hesper; but it was with a laugh, and that light touch of the tongue which suggests but a flying fancy spoken but for the sake of the preposterous; while Mary, not forgetting she had heard the same thing once before, heard it with a smile, and had no rejoinder ready; whereupon Hesper, who was, in reality, feeling her way, ventured a little more seriousness.
"I should never ask you to do anything you would not like," she said.
"I don't think you could," answered Mary.