"Oh, dear, no!" returned Mary, with a smile most plainly fancy-free. "I am not engaged, nor in the least likely to be." "And not in love either?" said Hesper--with such coolness that Mary looked up in her face to know if she had really said so. "No," she replied. "No more am I," echoed Hesper; "that is the one good thing in the business: I sha'n't break my heart, as some girls do. At least, so they say--I don't believe it: how could a girl be so indecent? It is bad enough to marry a man: that one can't avoid; but to die of a broken heart is to be a traitor to your sex. As if women couldn't live without men!" Mary smiled and was silent. She had read a good deal, and thought she understood such things better than Miss Mortimer. But she caught herself smiling, and she felt as if she had sinned. For that a young woman should speak of love and marriage as Miss Mortimer did, was too horrible to be understood--and she had smiled! She would have been less shocked with Hesper, however, had she known that she forced an indifference she could not feel--her last poor rampart of sand against the sea of horror rising around her. But from her heart she pitied her, almost as one of the lost. "Don't fix your eyes like that," said Hesper, angrily, "or I shall cry. Look the other way, and listen.--I am marrying money, I tell you--and for money; therefore, I ought to get the good of it. Mr. Mortimer will be father enough to see to that! So I shall be able to do what I please. I have fallen in love with you; and why shouldn't I have you for my--" She paused, hesitating: what was it she was about to propose to the little lady standing before her? She had been going to say _maid_: what was it that checked her? The feeling was to herself shapeless and nameless; but, however some of my readers may smile at the notion of a girl who served behind a counter being a lady, and however ready Hesper Mortimer would have been to join them, it was yet a vague sense of the fact that was now embarrassing her, for she was not half lady enough to deal with it. In very truth, Mary Marston was already immeasurably more of a lady than Hesper Mortimer was ever likely to be in this world. What was the stateliness and pride of the one compared to the fact that the other would have died in the workhouse or the street rather than let a man she did not love embrace her--yes, if all her ancestors in hell had required the sacrifice! To be a martyr to a lie is but false ladyhood. She only is a lady who witnesses to the truth, come of it what may. "--For my--my companion, or something of the sort," concluded Hesper; "and then I should be sure of being always dressed to my mind." "That _would_ be nice!" responded Mary, thinking only of the kindness in the speech. "Would you really like it?" asked Hesper, in her turn pleased. "I should like it very much," replied Mary, not imagining the proposal had in it a shadow of seriousness. "I wish it were possible."