Few
hearts are capable of loving as she loved. It was not merely that
she saw in Hesper a grand creature, and lovely to look upon, or
that one so much her superior in position showed such a liking
for herself; she saw in her one she could help, one at least who
sorely needed help, for she seemed to know nothing of what made
life worth having--one who had done, and must yet be capable of
doing, things degrading to the humanity of womanhood. Without the
hope of helping in the highest sense, Mary could not have taken
up her abode in such a house as Mrs. Redmain's. No outward
service of any kind, even to the sick, was to her service enough
to _choose_; were it laid upon her, she would hasten to it;
for necessity is the push, gentle or strong, as the man is more
or less obedient, by which God sends him into the path he would
have him take. But to help to the birth of a beautiful Psyche,
enveloped all in the gummy cerecloths of its chrysalis, not yet
aware, even, that it must get out of them, and spread great wings
to the sunny wind of God--that was a thing for which the holiest
of saints might well take a servant's place--the thing for which
the Lord of life had done it before him. To help out such a
lovely sister--how Hesper would have drawn herself up at the
word! it is mine, not Mary's--as she would be when no longer
holden of death, but her real self, the self God meant her to be
when he began making her, would indeed be a thing worth having
lived for! Between the ordinarily benevolent woman and Mary
Marston, there was about as great a difference as between the
fashionable church-goer and Catherine of Siena.
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