Mary's service was full of live and near presence, as that of dew or summer wind; Folter handled her as if she were dressing a doll, Mary as if she were dressing a baby; her hands were deft as an angel's, her feet as noiseless as swift.

And to have Mary near was not only to have a ministering spirit at hand, but to have a good atmosphere all around--an air, a heaven, out of which good things must momently come.
Few could be closely associated with her and not become aware at least of the capacity of being better, if not of the desire to be better.
In the matter of immediate result, it was a transition from decoration to dress.

If in any sense Hesper was well dressed before, she was in every sense well dressed now--dressed so, that is, as to reveal the nature, the analogies, and the associations of her beauty: no manner of dressing can make a woman look more beautiful than she is, though many a mode may make her look less so.
There was one in the house, however, who was not pleased at the change from Folter to Mary: Sepia found herself in consequence less necessary to Hesper.

Hitherto Hesper had never been satisfied without Sepia's opinion and final approval in that weightiest of affairs, the matter of dress; but she found in Mary such a faculty as rendered appeal to Sepia unnecessary; for she not only satisfied her idea of herself, and how she would choose to look, but showed her taste as much surer than Sepia's as Sepia's was readier than Hesper's own.

Sepia was equal to the dressing of herself--she never blundered there; but there was little dependence to be placed upon her in dressing another.