d, into more of mere
jockeyism than either she or her father liked.

"But the flowers, I fancy, Rod, would be coals to Newcastle. They
have a greenhouse."

"And have never had a decent man to manage it. It came to nothing
this year. She told me so. You see it just is a literal _new_
castle. Mr. Argenter is too busy in town to look after it; and
they've been cheated and disappointed right and left. They're not to
blame for being new," he continued, seeing the least possible little
_lifted_ look about Amy's delicate lips and eyebrows. "I hate _that_
kind of shoddiness."

"'Don't fire--I'll come down,'" said Amy, laughing. "And I don't
think I ever get _very_ far up, beyond what's safe and reasonable
for a"--

"Nice, well-bred little coon," said Rodney, patting her on the
shoulder, in an exuberance of gracious approval and beamingly serene
content. "I'll take you in my gig with Red Squirrel," he added, by
way of reward of merit.

Now Amy in her secret heart was mortally afraid of Red Squirrel, but
she would have been upset ten times over--by Rodney--sooner than say
so.

When Sylvie Argenter, that afternoon, from her window with its cool,
deep awning, saw Rodney Sherrett and his sister coming up the drive,
there flashed across her, by a curious association, the thought of
the young carpenter who had gone up the village street and bowed to
Ray Ingraham, the baker's daughter.

After all, the gentleman's "place," apart and retired, and the long
"approach," were not so very much worse, when the "people in the
carriages,"--the right people,--really came: and "on purpose" was
not such a bad qualification of the coming, either.

And when Mrs. Argenter, hearing the bell, and the movement of an
arrival, and not being herself summoned in consequence, rung
in her own room for the maid, and received for answer to her
inquiry,--"Miss Sherrett and young Mr. Sherrett, ma'am, to see Miss
Sylvie,"--she turned back to her volume of "London Society," much
and mixedly reconciled in her thoughts to two things that occurred
to her at once,--one of them adding itself to the other as
manifestly in the same remarkable order of providence; "that
tip-out" from the basket-phaeton, and the new white frill-trimmed
polonaise that Miss Sylvie would put on, so needlessly, this
afternoon, in spite of her remonstrance that the laundress had just
left without warning, and there was no knowing when they should ever
find another.

"There is certa