“Away out here as we are, we must keep an expert cook, you know; we can’t send out for bread and cake, and salads and soups, on an emergency, as we did in town.”  “We must have a seamstress in the house the year round; it is such a bother driving about a ten-mile circuit after one in a hurry;” and now,—­“Sylvie ought to have a little vehicle of her own, she is so far away from all her friends; no running in and out and making little daily plans, as girls do in a neighborhood.  All the girls of her class have their own pony-chaises now; it is a part of the plan of living.”

“It isn’t any part of my plan,” said Mr. Argenter, who had his little spasms of returning to old-fashioned ideas he was brought up in, but had long ago practically deserted; and these spasms mostly took him, it must be said, in response to new propositions of Mrs. Argenter’s.  His own plans evolved gradually; he came to them by imperceptible steps of mental process, or outward constraint; Mrs. Argenter’s “jumped” at him, took him at unawares, and by sudden impinging upon solid shield of permanent judgment struck out sparks of opposition.  She could not very well help that.  He never had time to share her little experiences, and interests, and perplexities, and so sympathize with her as she went along, and up to the agreeing and consenting point.

“I won’t set her up with any such absurdities,” said Mr. Argenter.  “It’s confounded ruinous shoddy nonsense.  Makes little fools of them all.  Sylvie’s got airs enough now.  It won’t do for her to think she can have everything the Highfords do.”

“It isn’t that,” said Mrs. Argenter, sweetly.  Her position, and the soft “g” in her name, giving her a sense of something elegant and gentle-bred to be always sustained and acted up to, had really helped and strengthened Mrs. Argenter in very much of her established amiability.  We don’t know, always, where our ties and braces really are.  We are graciously allowed many a little temporary stay whose hold cannot be quite directly raced to the everlasting foundations.

“It isn’t that; I don’t care for the Highfords, particularly.  Though I do like to have Sylvie enjoy things as she sees them enjoyed all around her, in her own circle.  But it’s the convenience; and then, it’s a real means of showing kindness.  She can so often ask other girls, you know, to drive with her; girls who haven’t pony-chaises.”

“Showing kindness, yes; you’ve just hit it there.  But it isn’t always fun to the frogs, Mrs. A.!”

Now if Mrs. Argenter disliked one thing more than another, that her husband ever did, it was his calling her “Mrs. A.;” and I am very much afraid, I was going to say, that he knew it; but of course he did when she had mildly told him so, over and over,—­I am afraid he recollected it, at this very moment, and others similar.

“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Argenter,” she said, with some quiet coldness.