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.
"Come and live with me, Miss Marston," said Hesper; but it was
with a laugh, and that light touch of the tongue which suggests
but a flying fancy spoken but for the sake of the preposterous;
while Mary, not forgetting she had heard the same thing once
before, heard it with a smile, and had no rejoinder ready;
whereupon Hesper, who was, in reality, feeling her way, ventured
a little more seriousness.
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