For all her troubles, however, Mary had her pleasures, even in
the shop. It was a delight to receive the friendly greetings of
such as had known and honored her father. She had the pleasure,
as real as it was simple, of pure service, reaping the fruit of
the earth in the joy of the work that was given her to do; there
is no true work that does not carry its reward though there are
few that do not drop it and lose it. She gathered also the
pleasure of seeing and talking with people whose manners and
speech were of finer grain and tone than those about her. When
Hesper Mortimer entered the shop, she brought with her delight;
her carriage was like the gait of an ode; her motions were
rhythm; and her speech was music. Her smile was light, and her
whole presence an enchantment to Mary. The reading aloud which
Wardour had led her to practice had taught her much, not only in
respect of the delicacies of speech and utterance, but in the
deeper matters of motion, relation, and harmony. Hesper's clear-
cut but not too sharply defined consonants; her soft but full-
bodied vowels; above all, her slow cadences that hovered on the
verge of song, as her walk on the verge of a slow aerial dance;
the carriage of her head, the movements of her lips, her arms,
her hands; the self-possession that seemed the very embodiment of
law--these formed together a whole of inexpressible delight,
inextricably for Mary associated with music and verse: she would
hasten to serve her as if she had been an angel come to do a
little earthly shopping, and return with the next heavenward
tide.
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