“I was sitting in the bay-window at home, when it began this morning; that made me think.  All the world dripping wet, and I just put there dry and safe in the middle of the storm, shut up behind those great clear panes and tight sashes.  How they did have to contrive, and work, before there were such places made for people!  What if they had got into their first scratchy little houses, and sat behind the logs as we do behind glass windows and thought, as I was thinking, how nice it was just to be covered up from the rain?  Is it all finished now?  Hasn’t anybody got to contrive anything more?  And who’s going to do it—­and everything.  And what are we good for,—­just we,—­to come and expect it all, modern-improved!  I don’t think much of our place among things, do you, Mrs. Froke?—­There, I believe that’s it, as near as I can!’”

“Why does thee ask me, Desire?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t know any whys or what fors.  ’Behold we know not anything,’—­Tennyson and I!  But you seem so—­pacified—­I suppose I thought you must have settled most things in your mind.”

“Every builder—­every little joiner—­did his piece,—­thought his thought out, I think likely.  There’s no little groove or moulding or fitting or finish, but is a bit of somebody’s living; and life grows, going on.  We’ve all got our piece to do,” said Rachel.

“I asked Mrs. Mig,” Desire pursued, “and she said some people’s part was to buy and employ and encourage; and that spending money helps all the world; and then she put another cushion to her back, and went on tatting.”

“Perhaps it does—­in spite of the world,” said Rachel Froke, quietly.

“But I guess nobody is to sit by and only encourage; God has given out no such portion as that, I do believe.  We can encourage each other, and every one do his own piece too.”

“I didn’t really suppose Mrs. Mig knew,” said Desire, demurely.  “She never began at the bottom of anything.  She only finishes off.  She buys pattern worsted work, and fills it in.  That’s what she’s doing now, when she don’t tat; a great bunch of white lilies, grounding it with olive.  It’s lovely; but I’d rather have made the lilies.  She’ll give it to mother, and then Glossy will come and spend the winter with us.  Mrs. Mig is going to Nassau with a sick friend; she’s awfully useful—­for little overseeings and general touchings up, after all the hard part is done.  Mrs. Mig’s sick friends always have nurses and waiting maids—­Mrs. F——­ Rachel!  Do you know, I haven’t got any piece!”

“No, I don’t know; nor does thee either, yet,” said Rachel Froke.

* * * * *

“It’s all such bosh!” said Kenneth Kincaid, flinging down a handful of papers.  “I’ve no right, I solemnly think, to help such stuff out into the world!  A man can’t take hold anywhere, it seems, without smutting his fingers!”

Kenneth Kincaid was correcting proof for a publisher.  What he had to work on this morning was the first chapters of a flimsy novel.