by Henry James

“ One warm dull featureless Friday, when an accident had made her start from Cocker’s a little later than usual, she became aware that something of which the infinite possibilities had for so long peopled her dreams was at last prodigiously upon her, though the perfection in which the conditions happened to present it was almost rich enough to be but the positive creation of a dream. ”

“ Remarks were remarks, and very well for that; but fate was fate, and this young lady’s was to pass Park Chambers every night in the working week. Out of the immensity of her knowledge of the life of the world there bloomed on these occasions as specific remembrance that it was regarded in that region, in August and September, as rather pleasant just to be caught for something or other in passing through town. Somebody was always passing and somebody might catch somebody else. ”

“ There was accordingly a sense in which, at such a period, the great differences of the human condition could press upon her more than ever; a circumstance drawing fresh force in truth from the very fact of the chance that at last, for a change, did squarely meet her—the chance to be “off,” for a bit, almost as far as anybody. They took their turns in the cage as they took them both in the shop and at Chalk Farm ”