"I wonder,—I wonder—if I shall ever live anything all straight out!"
XIII.
PIECES OF WORLDS.
Mr. Dickens 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 noble 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.