He had left his question, as their talk went on, meaning to ask it again before they separated. He thought it was prevailing with her, and that the help that comes of helping others would reach her need; it was for her sake he asked it; he was disappointed at the sudden, almost trivial turn she gave it.

"You have taken up another a.n.a.logy, Miss Desire," he said. "We were talking about crumbs and feeding. The five loaves and the five thousand. 'Why reason ye because ye have no bread? How is it that ye do not understand?'"

Kenneth quoted these words naturally, pleasantly; as he might quote anything that had been spoken to them both out of a love and authority they both recognized, a little while ago.

But Desire was suddenly sharp and fractious. If it had not touched some deep, live place in her, she would not have minded so much. It was partly, too, the coming toward home. She had got away out of the pure, clear s.p.a.ces where such things seemed to be fit and unstrained, into the edge of her earth atmosphere again, where, falling, they took fire. Presently she would be in that ridiculous pink room, and Glossy Megilp would be chattering about "those lovely purple poppies with the black gra.s.s," that she had been lamenting all the morning she had not bought for her chip hat, instead of the pomegranate flowers. And Agatha would be on the bed, in her cashmere sack, reading Miss Braddon.

"It would sound nice to tell them she was going down to the Mission School to give out crumbs!"

Besides, I suppose that persons of a certain temperament never utter a more ungracious "No," than when they are longing all the time to say "Yes."

So she turned round on the lower step to Kenneth, when he had asked that grave, sweet question of the Lord's, and said perversely,--

"I thought you did not believe in any brokering kind of business.

It's all there,--for everybody. Why should I set up to fetch and carry?"

She did not look in his face as she said it; she was not audacious enough to do that; she poked with the stick of her sunshade between the uneven bricks of the sidewalk, keeping her eyes down, as if she watched for some truth she expected to pry up. But she only wedged the stick in so that she could not get it out; and Kenneth Kincaid making her absolutely no answer at all, she had to stand there, growing red and ashamed, held fast by her own silly trap.

"Take care; you will break it," said Kenneth, quietly, as she gave it a twist and a wrench. And he put out his hand, and took it from hers, and drew gently upward in the line in which she had thrust it in.

"You were bearing off at an angle. It wanted a straight pull."

"I never pull straight at anything. I always get into a crook, somehow. You didn't answer me, Mr. Kincaid. I didn't mean to be rude--or wicked. I didn't mean--"

"What you said. I know that; and it's no use to answer what people don't mean. That makes the crookedest crook of all."

"But I think I did mean it partly; only not contrarimindedly. I do mean that I have no business--yet awhile. It would only be--Migging at gospel!"

And with this remarkable application of her favorite ill.u.s.trative expression, she made a friendly but abrupt motion of leave-taking, and went into the house.

Up into her own room, in the third story, where the old furniture was, and no "fadging,"--and sat down, bonnet, gloves, sunshade, and all, in her little cane rocking-chair by the window.

Helena was down in the pink room, listening with charmed ears to the grown up young-ladyisms of her elder sisters and Glossy Megilp.

Desire sat still until the dinner-bell rang, forgetful of her dress, forgetful of all but one thought that she spoke out as she rose at last at the summons to take off her things in a hurry,--

"I wonder,--I _wonder_--if I shall ever live anything all straight out!"

XIII.

PIECES OF WORLDS.

Mr. d.i.c.kens never put a truer thought into any book, than he put at the beginning of "Little Dorrit."

That, from over land and sea, from hundreds, thousands of miles away, are coming the people with whom we are to have to do in our lives; and that, "what is set to us to do to them, and what is set for them to do to us, will all be done."

Not only from far places in this earth, over land and sea,--but from out the eternities, before and after,--from which souls are born, and into which they die,--all the lines of life are moving continually which are to meet and join, and bend, and cross our own.

But it is only with a little piece of this world, as far as we can see it in this short and simple story, that we have now to do.

Rosamond Holabird was coming down to Boston.

With all her pretty, fresh, delicate, high-lady ways, with her beautiful looks, and her sweet readiness for true things and n.o.ble living, she was coming, for a few days only,--the cooperative housekeeping was going on at Westover, and she could not be spared long,--right in among them here in Aspen Street, and Shubarton Place, and Orchard Street, and Harrisburg Square, where Mrs.

Scherman lived whom she was going to stay with. But a few days may be a great deal.

Rosamond Holabird was coming for far more than she knew. Among other things she was coming to get a lesson; a lesson right on in a course she was just now learning; a lesson of next things, and best things, and real folks.

You see how it happened,--where the links were; Miss Craydocke, and Sin Scherman, and Leslie Goldthwaite, were dear friends, made to each other one summer among the mountains. Leslie had had Sin and Miss Craydocke up at Z----, and Rosamond and Leslie were friends, also.

Mrs. Frank Scherman had a pretty house in Harrisburg Square. She had not much time for paying fashionable calls, or party-going, or party-giving. As to the last, she did not think Frank had money enough yet to "circ.u.mfuse," she said, in that way.

But she had six lovely little harlequin cups on a side-shelf in her china closet, and six different-patterned breakfast plates, with colored borders to match the cups; rose, and brown, and gray, and vermilion, and green, and blue. These were all the real china she had, and were for Frank and herself and the friends whom she made welcome,--and who might come four at once,--for day and night. She delighted in "little stays;" in girls who would go into the nursery with her, and see Sinsie in her bath; or into the kitchen, and help her mix up "little delectabilities to surprise Frank with;" only the trouble had got to be now, that the surprise occurred when the delectabilities did not. Frank had got demoralized, and expected them. She rejoiced to have Miss Craydocke drop in of a morning and come right up stairs, with her little petticoats and things to work on; and she and Frank returned these visits in a social, cosy way, after Sinsie was in her crib for the night. Frank's boots never went on with a struggle for a walk down to Orchard Street; but they were terribly impossible for Continuation Avenue.

So it had come about long ago, though I have not had a corner to mention it in, that they "knew the m.u.f.fin Man," in an Aspen Street sense; and were no strangers to the charm of Mrs. Ripwinkley's "evenings." There was always an "evening" in the "Mile Hill House,"

as the little family and friendly coterie had come to call it.

Rosamond and Leslie had been down together for a week once, at the Schermans; and this time Rosamond was coming alone. She had business in Boston for a day or two, and had written to ask Asenath "if she might." There were things to buy for Barbara, who was going to be married in a "navy hurry," besides an especial matter that had determined her just at this time to come.

And Asenath answered, "that the scarlet and gray, and green and blue were pining and fading on the shelf; and four days would be the very least to give them all a turn and treat them fairly; for such things had their delicate susceptibilities, as Hans Andersen had taught us to know, and might starve and suffer,--why not? being made of protoplasm, same as anybody."

Rosamond's especial errand to the city was one that just a little set her up, innocently, in her mind. She had not wholly got the better,--when it interfered with no good-will or generous dealing,--of a certain little instinctive reverence for imposing outsides and grand ways of daily doing; and she was somewhat complacent at the idea of having to go,--with kindly and needful information,--to Madam Mucklegrand, in Spreadsplendid Park.

Madam Mucklegrand was a well-born Boston lady, who had gone to Europe in her early youth, and married a Scottish gentleman with a Sir before his name. Consequently, she was quite ent.i.tled to be called "my lady;" and some people who liked the opportunity of touching their republican tongues to the salt of European dignitaries, addressed her so; but, for the most part, she a.s.sumed and received simply the style of "Madam." A queen may be called "Madam," you know. It covers an indefinite greatness. But when she spoke of her late,--very long ago,--husband, she always named him as "Sir Archibald."

Madam Mucklegrand's daughter wanted a wet-nurse for her little baby.

Up in Z----, there was a poor woman whose husband, a young brakeman on the railroad, had been suddenly killed three months ago, before her child was born. There was a sister here in Boston, who could take care of it for her if she could go to be foster-mother to some rich little baby, who was yet so poor as this--to need one. So Rosamond Holabird, who was especially interested for Mrs. Jopson, had written to Asenath, and had an advertis.e.m.e.nt put in the "Transcript," referring to Mrs. Scherman for information. And the Mucklegrand carriage had rolled up, the next day, to the house in Harrisburg Square.

They wanted to see the woman, of course, and to hear all about her,--more than Mrs. Scherman was quite able to tell; therefore when she sent a little note up to Z----, by the evening mail, Rosamond replied with her "Might she come?"

She brought Jane Jopson and the baby down with her, left them over night at Mrs. Ginnever's, in Sheafe Street, and was to go for them next morning and take them up to Spreadsplendid Park. She had sent a graceful, polite little note to Madam Mucklegrand, dated "Westover, Z----," and signed, "Rosamond Holabird," offering to do this, that there might not be the danger of Jane's losing the chance in the meanwhile.

It was certainly to accomplish the good deed that Rosamond cared the most; but it was also certainly something to accomplish it in that very high quarter. It lent a piquancy to the occasion.

She came down to breakfast very nicely and discriminatingly dressed, with the elegant quietness of a lady who knew what was simply appropriate to such an errand and the early hour, but who meant to be recognized as the lady in every unmistakable touch; and there was a carriage ordered for her at half past nine.

Sin Scherman was a cute little matron; she discerned the dash of subdued importance in Rosamond's air; and she thought it very likely, in the Boston nature of things, that it would get wholesomely and civilly toned down.

Just at this moment, Rosamond, putting on her little straw bonnet with real lace upon it, and her simple little narrow-bordered green shawl, that was yet, as far as it went, veritable cashmere,--had a consciousness, in a still, modest way, not only of her own personal dignity as Rosamond Holabird, who was the same going to see Madam Mucklegrand, or walking over to Madam Pennington's, and as much in her place with one as the other; but of the dignity of Westover itself, and Westover ladyhood, represented by her among the palaces of Boston-Appendix to-day.

She was only twenty, this fair and pleasant Rosamond of ours, and country simple, with all her native tact and grace; and she forgot, or did not know how full of impressions a life like Madam Mucklegrand's might be, and how very trifling and fleeting must be any that she might chance to make.

She drove away down to the North End, and took Jane Jopson and her baby in,--very clean and shiny, both of them,--and Jane particularly nice in the little black c.r.a.pe bonnet that Rosamond herself had made, and the plain black shawl that Mrs. Holabird had given her.