"It is my business to take little stitches. I don't know how to do anything else."
"Do you mean it literally? It is your business to sew?"
The notion seemed to surprise him.
"No; I mean in a general sense. Some of us can do only small things, a stitch at a time,—take little steps, and not know always where they are going."
"Is this a little step—to Volney?"
"Oh, no; it is a very long one, and rather a wild one, I'm afraid. I suppose everybody does a wild thing once in a lifetime?"
"How should you know that?"
"I only said so. I don't say that it is true."
"People who take little steps are sometimes picked up and carried off their feet by those who take long, wild ones."
"Why, what are we talking about?" she asked herself, in surprise.