"If you really wish it, ma'am, I will venture to go for half an hour. There is no occasion to speak to Mr. Turnbull. Besides, it is almost dinner-time."
"Do, then. I am sure you will eat a better dinner for having had a little fresh air first. It is a lovely morning. We will drive to the Roman camp on the top of Clover-down."
"I shall be ready in two minutes," said Mary, and ran from the shop.
As she passed along the outside of his counter coming back, she stopped and told Mr. Turnbull where she was going. Instead of answering her, he turned himself toward Mrs. Redmain, and went through a series of bows and smiles recognizant of favor, which she did not choose to see. She turned and walked from the shop, got into the brougham, and made room for Mary at her side.
But, although the drive was a lovely one, and the view from either window delightful, and to Mary it was like getting out of a tomb to leave the shop in the middle of the day, she saw little of the sweet country on any side, so much occupied was she with Hesper. Ere they stopped again at the shop-door, the two young women were nearer being friends than Hesper had ever been with any one. The sleepy heart in her was not yet dead, but capable still of the pleasure of showing sweet condescension and gentle patronage to one who admired her, and was herself agreeable. To herself she justified her kindness to Mary with the remark that the young woman deserved encouragement —whatever that might mean—because she was so anxious to improve herself! —a duty Hesper could recognize in another.
As they went, Mary told her something of her miserable relations with the Turnbulls; and, as they returned, Hesper actually—this time with perfect seriousness—proposed that she should give up business, and live with her.
Nor was this the ridiculous thing it may at first sight appear to not a few of my readers. It arose from what was almost the first movement in the direction of genuine friendship Hesper had ever felt. She had been familiar in her time with a good many, but familiarity is not friendship, and may or may not exist along with it. Some, who would scorn the idea of a friendship with such as Mary, will be familiar enough with maids as selfish as themselves, and part from them—no—part with them, the next day, or the next hour, with never a twinge of regret. Of this, Hesper was as capable as any; but friendship is its own justification, and she felt no horror at the new motion of her heart. At the same time she did not recognize it as friendship, and, had she suspected Mary of regarding their possible relation in that light, she would have dismissed her pride, perhaps contempt. Nevertheless the sorely whelmed divine thing in her had uttered a feeble sigh of incipient longing after the real; Mary had begun to draw out the love in her; while her conventional judgment justified the proposed extraordinary proceeding with the argument of the endless advantages to result from having in the house, devoted to her wishes, a young woman with an absolute genius for dressmaking; one capable not only of originating in that foremost of arts, but, no doubt, with a little experience, of carrying out also with her own hands the ideas of her mistress. 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.
"I should never ask you to do anything you would not like," she said.