The Other Girls | Page 3

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.
"I mean, I know how she takes other girls to ride; she _sets them down
at the small gray house,--the house without any piazza or hay window,
Michael_!" and Mr. Argenter laughed. That was the order he had heard
Sylvie give one day when he had come up with his own carriage at the
post-office in the village, whither he had walked over for exercise and
the evening papers. Sylvie had Aggie Townsend with her, and she put
her head out at the window on one side just as her father passed on the
other, and directed Michael, with a very elegant nonchalance, to "set

this little girl down" as aforesaid. Mr. Argenter had been half amused
and half angry. The anger passed off, but he had kept up the joke.
"O, do let that old story alone," exclaimed Mrs. Argenter. "Sylvie will
soon outgrow all that. If you want to make her a real lady, there is
nothing like letting her get thoroughly used to having things."
"I don't intend her to get used to having a pony-chaise," Mr. Argenter
said very quietly and shortly. "If she wants to 'show a kindness,' and
take 'other' girls to ride, there's the slide-top buggy and old Scrub. She
may have that as often as she pleases."
And Mrs. Argenter knew that this ended--or had better end--the
conversation.
For that time. Sylvie Argenter did get used to having a pony-chaise,
after all. Her mother waited six months, until the pleasant summer
weather, when her friends began to come out from the city to spend
days with her, or to take early teas, and Michael had to be sent
continually to meet and leave them at the trains. Then she began again,
and asked for a pony-chaise for herself. To "save the cost of it in
Michael's time, and the wear and tear of the heavy carriages. Those
little sunset drives would be such a pleasure to her, just when Michael
had to be milking and putting up for the night." Mr. Argenter had
forgotten all about the other talk, Sylvie's name now being not once
mentioned; and the end of it was that a pretty little low phæton was
added to the Argenter equipages, and that Sylvie's mother was always
lending it to her.
So Sylvie was driving about in it this afternoon. She had been over to
West Dorbury to see the Highfords, and was coming round by
Ingraham's Corner, to stop there and buy one of his fresh big loaves of
real brown bread for her father's tea. It was a little unspoken, politic
understanding between Sylvie and her mother, that some small,
acceptable errand like this was to be accomplished whenever the
former had the basket-phæton of an afternoon. By quiet, unspoken
demonstration, Mr. Argenter was made to feel in his own little
comforts what a handy thing it was to