and give her fresh life
to take home with her. So little progress did she make with Hesper,
that she could not help thinking it must have been for Letty's sake she
was allowed to go to London.

Mr. and Mrs. Redmain went again to Durnmelling, but Mary begged Hesper
to leave her behind. She told her the reason, without mentioning the
name of the friend she desired to tend. Hesper shrugged her shoulders,
as much as to say she wondered at her taste; but she did not believe
that was in reality the cause of her wish, and, setting herself to find
another, concluded she did not choose to show herself at Testbridge in
her new position, and, afraid of losing if she opposed her, let her
have her way. Nor, indeed, was she so necessary to her at Durnmelling,
where there were few visitors, and comparatively little dressing was
required: for the mere routine of such ordinary days, Jemima was
enough, who, now and then called by Mary to her aid, had proved herself
handy and capable, and had learned much. So, all through the hottest of
the late summer and autumn weather, Mary remained in London, where
every pavement seemed like the floor of a baker's oven, and, for all
the life with which the city swarmed, the little winds that wandered
through it seemed to have lost their vitality. How she longed for the
common and the fields and the woods, where the very essence of life
seemed to dwell in the atmosphere even when stillest, and the joy that
came pouring from the throats of the birds seemed to flow first from
her own soul into them! The very streets and lanes of Testbridge looked
like paradise to Mary in Lon-don. But she never wished herself in the
shop again, although almost every night she dreamed of the glad old
time when her father was in it with her, and when, although they might
not speak from morning to night, their souls kept talking across crowd
and counters, and each was always aware of the other's supporting
presence.

Longing, however, is not necessarily pain--it may, indeed, be intensest
bliss; and, if Mary longed for the freedom of the country, it was not
to be miserable that she could not have it. Her mere thought of it was
to her a greater delight than the presence of all its joys is to many
who desire them the most. That such things, and the possibility of such
sensations from them, should be in the world, was enough to make Mary
jubilant. But, then, she was at peace with her conscience, and had her
heart full of lovin