ndship Hesper had ever felt. She had been
familiar in her time with a good many, but familiarity is not
friendship, and may or may not exist along with it. Some, who would
scorn the idea of a _friendship_ with such as Mary, will be familiar
enough with maids as selfish as themselves, and part from
them--no--part _with_ them, the next day, or the next hour, with never
a twinge of regret. Of this, Hesper was as capable as any; but
friendship is its own justification, and she felt no horror at the new
motion of her heart. At the same time she did not recognize it as
friendship, and, had she suspected Mary of regarding their possible
relation in that light, she would have dismissed her pride, perhaps
contempt. 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.