The Other Girls | Page 2

PLACE CHAPEL XV. BONNY BOWLS XVI.
RECOMPENSE XVII. ERRANDS OF HOPE XVIII. BRICKFIELD
FARMS XIX. BLOSSOMING FERNS XX. "WANTED" XXI.
VOICES AND VISIONS XXII. BOX FIFTY-TWO XXIII. EVENING
AND MORNING: THE SECOND DAY XXIV. TEMPTATION XXV.
BEL BREE'S CRUSADE: THE PREACHING XXVI. TROUBLE AT
THE SCHERMANS' XXVII. BEL BREE'S CRUSADE: THE
TAKING OF JERUSALEM XXVIII. "LIVING IN" XXIX.
WINTERGREEN XXX. NEIGHBOR STREET AND GRAVES
ALLEY XXXI. CHOSEN: AND CALLED XXXII. EASTER LILIES
XXXIII. KITCHEN CRAMBO XXXIV. WHAT NOBODY COULD
HELP XXXV. HILL-HOPE

THE OTHER GIRLS
CHAPTER I.
SPILLED OUT.
Sylvie Argenter was driving about in her mother's little basket-phæton.

There was a story about this little basket-phæton, a story, and a bit of
domestic diplomacy.
The story would branch away, back and forward; which I cannot, right
here in this first page, let it do. It would tell--taking the little carriage
for a text and key--ever so much about aims and ways and principles,
and the drift of a household life, which was one of the busy little
currents in the world that help to make up its great universal character
and atmosphere, at this present age of things, as the drifts and sweeps
of ocean make up the climates and atmospheres that wrap and influence
the planet.
But the diplomacy had been this:--
"There is one thing, Argie, I should really like Sylvie to have. It is
getting to be almost a necessity, living out of town as we do."
Mr. Argenter's other names were "Increase Muchmore;" but his wife
passed over all that, and called him in the grace of conjugal intimacy,
"Argie."
Increase Muchmore Argenter.
A curious combination; but you need not say it could not have
happened. I have read half a dozen as funny combinations in a single
advertising page of a newspaper, or in a single transit of the city in a
horse-car.
It did not happen altogether without a purpose, either. Mr. Argenter's
father had been fond of money; had made and saved a considerable
sum himself; and always meant that his son should make and save a
good deal more. So he signified this in his cradle and gave him what he
called a lucky name, to begin with. The wife of the elder Mr. Argenter
had been a Muchmore; her only brother had been named Increase,
either out of oddity, such as influenced a certain Mr. Crabtree whom I
have heard of, to call his son Agreen, or because the old Puritan name
had been in the family, or with a like original inspiration of luck and
thrift to that which influenced the later christening, if you can call it

such; and now, therefore, resulted Increase Muchmore Argenter. The
father hung, as it were, a charm around his son's neck, as Catholics do,
giving saints' names to their children. But young Increase found it, in
his earlier years, rather of the nature of a millstone. It was a good while,
for instance, before Miss Maria Thorndike could make up her mind to
take upon herself such a title. She did not much mind it now. "I.M.
Argenter" was such a good signature at the bottom of a check; and the
surname was quite musical and elegant. "Mrs. Argenter" was all she
had put upon her cards. There was no other Mrs. Argenter to be
confounded with. The name stood by itself in the Directory. All the rest
of the Argenters were away down in Maine in Poggowantimoc.
"Living out of town as we do." Mrs. Argenter always put that in. It was
the nut that fastened all her screws of argument.
"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