"I think I know good poetry by what it does to me," resumed Mary, thoughtfully, just as Hesper was about to pass to the business of the hour. "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." "I wish you would make my wedding-dress," said Hesper. "I could not venture, even if I had the time," answered Mary. "The moment I began to cut into the stuff, I should be terrified, and lose my self-possession. I never made a dress for anybody but myself." "You are a little witch!" said Hesper; while Mary, who had roughly prepared a larger shape, proceeded to fit it to her person. She was busy pinning and unpinning, shifting and pinning again, when suddenly Hesper said: "I suppose you know I am going to marry money?" "Oh! don't say that. It's too dreadful!" cried Mary, stopping her work, and looking up in Hesper's face. "What! you supposed I was going to marry a man like Mr. Redmain for love?" rejoined Hesper, with a hard laugh. "I can not bear to think of it!" said Mary. "But you do not really mean it! You are only--making fun of me! Do say you are." "Indeed, I am not. I wish I could say I was! It is very horrid, I know, but where's the good of mincing matters? If I did not call the thing by its name, the thing would be just the same. You know, people in our world have to do as they must; they can't pick and choose like you happy creatures. I dare say, now, you are engaged to a young man you love with all your heart, one you would rather marry than any other in the whole universe."