ords, 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. Neither of them knew it, but so it was; for
the angels are essentially humble, and Hesper would have condescended
to any angel out of her own class.

"I think I know good poetry by what it does to me," resumed Mary,
thoughtfully, just as Hesper was about to pass to the business of the
hour.

"Indeed!" rejoined Hesper, not less puzzled than before, if the word
should be used where there was no effort to understand. Poetry had
never done anything to her, and Mary's words conveyed no shadow of an
idea.

The tone of her _indeed_ checked Mary. She hesitated a moment, but went
on.

"Sometimes," she said, "it makes me feel as if my heart were too big
for my body; sometimes as if all the grand things in heaven and earth
were trying to get into me at once; sometimes as if I had discovered
something nobody else knew; sometimes as if--no, not _as if_, for then
I _must_ go and pray to God. But I am trying to tell you what I don't
know how to tell. I am not talking nonsense, I hope, only ashamed of
myself that I can't talk sense.--I will show you what I have been doing
about your dress."

Far more to Hesper's surprise and admiration than any of her
half-foiled attempts at the utterance of her thoughts, Mary, taking
from her pocket the shape she had prepared, put it on herself, and,
slowly revolving before Hesper, revealed what in her eyes was a
masterpiece.

"But how clever of you!" she cried.--Her own fingers had not been quite
innocent of the labor of the needle, for money had long been scarce at
Durnmelling, and in the paper shape she recognized the hand of an
artist.--"Why," she continued, "you are nothing less than an
accomplished dressmaker!"

"That I dare not think myself," returned Mary, "seeing I never had a
lesson."

"I wish you would make my wedding-dress," said Hesper.

"I could not venture, even if I had the time," answered Mary. "The
moment I began to cut into the stuff, I should be terrified, and lose
my self-possession. I never