"After all—" began Rosamond, still with the questioning inflection.
"After all—" said Barbara, "there was the fire. That, luckily, was something else!"
"Does there always have to be a fire?" asked Ruth, laughing.
"Wait and see," repeated Barbara. "Perhaps you'll have an earthquake."
We have time for talks. We take up every little chink of time to have each other in. We want each other in all sorts of ways; we never wanted each other so, or had each other so, before.
Delia Waite is here, and there is some needful stitching going on; but the minutes are alongside the stitches, they are not eaten up; there are minutes everywhere. We have got a great deal of life into a little while; and—we have finished up our Home Story, to the very present instant.
Who finishes it? Who tells it?
Well,—"the kettle began it." Mrs. Peerybingle—pretty much—finished it. That is, the story began itself, then Ruth discovered that it was beginning, and began, first, to put it down. Then Ruth grew busy, and she wouldn't always have told quite enough of the Ruthy part; and Mrs. Holabird got hold of it, as she gets hold of everything, and she would not let it suffer a "solution of continuity." Then, partly, she observed; and partly we told tales, and recollected and reminded; and partly, here and there, we rushed in,—especially I, Barbara,—and did little bits ourselves; and so it came to be a "Song o' Sixpence," and at least four Holabirds were "singing in the pie."
Do you think it is—sarcastically—a "pretty dish to set before the king"? Have we shown up our friends and neighbors too plainly? There is one comfort; nobody knows exactly where "Z——" is; and there are friends and neighbors everywhere.