"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.
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