resently was breathing the fresh air of the twilight fields on her way
home to her piano and her books.

For some time after she was gone, Hesper was entirely occupied with the
excogitation of certain harmonies of the toilet that must minister
effect to the dress she had now so plainly before her mind's eye; but
by and by the dress began to melt away, and like a dissolving view
disappeared, leaving in its place the form of "that singular
shop-girl." There was nothing striking about her; she made no such
sharp impression on the mind as compelled one to think of her again;
yet always, when one had been long enough in her company to feel the
charm of her individuality, the very quiet of any quiet moment was
enough to bring back the sweetness of Mary's twilight presence. For
this girl, who spent her days behind a counter, was one of the
spiritual forces at work for the conservation and recovery of the
universe.

Not only had Hesper Mortimer never had a friend worthy of the name, but
no idea of pure friendship had as yet been generated in her. Sepia was
the nearest to her intimacy: how far friendship could have place
between two such I need not inquire; but in her fits of misery Hesper
had no other to go to. Those fits, alas! grew less and less frequent;
for Hesper was on the downward incline; but, when the next came, after
this interview, she found herself haunted, at a little distance, as it
were, by a strange sense of dumb, invisible tending. It did not once
come close to her; it did not once offer her the smallest positive
consolation; the thing was only this, that the essence of Mary's being
was so purely ministration, that her form could not recur to any memory
without bringing with it a dreamy sense of help. Most powerful of all
powers in its holy insinuation is _being_. _To be_ is more powerful
than even _to do_. Action _may_ be hypocrisy, but being is the thing
itself, and is the parent of action. Had anything that Mary said
recurred to Hesper, she would have thought of it only as the poor
sentimentality of a low education.

But Hesper did not think of Mary's position as low; that would have
been to measure it; and it did not once suggest itself as having any
relation to any life in which she was interested. She saw no difference
of level between Mary and the lawyer who came about her marriage
settlements: they were together beyond her social horizon. In like
manner, moral differences--and that in her own class--