"I say, Amy, why haven't you been over to the Argenters' this long while? Why don't you get Sylvie here?" "Why, I did go, Rod! Just when you asked me to. And she has been here; she called three weeks ago." "O, poh! After the spill! Of course you did. Just called; and she called. Why need that be the end of it? Why don't you make much of her? I can tell you she's a girl you _might_ make much of. She behaved like a lady, that day; and a _woman_,--that's more. She was neither scared nor mad; didn't scream, nor pout; nor even stand round to keep up the excitement. She was just cool and quiet, and took herself off properly. I don't know another girl that would have done so. She saved me out of the scrape as far as she was concerned; she might have made it ten times the muss it was. I'd rather run down a whole flock of sheep than graze the varnish off a woman's wheel, as a general principle. There's real backbone to Sylvie Argenter, besides her prettiness. My father would like her, I know. Why don't you bring her here; get intimate with her? I can't do it,--too fierce, you know." Amy Sherrett laughed. "What a nice little cat's-paw a sister makes! Doesn't she, Rod?" "I wonder if cats don't like chestnuts too, sometimes," said Rod; and then he whistled. "What a worry you are, Rod!" said Amy, with a little frown that some pretty girls have a way of making; half real and half got up for the occasion; a very becoming little pucker of a frown that seems to put a lovely sort of perplexed trouble into the beautiful eyes, only to show how much too sweet and tender they really are ever to be permitted a perplexity, and what a touching and appealing thing it would be if a trouble should get into them in any earnest. "In term time I'm always wishing it well over, for fear of what dreadful thing you may do next; and when it is vacation, it gets to be so much worse, here and there and everywhere, that I'm longing for you to be safe back in Cambridge." "Coming home Saturday nights? Well, you do get about the best of me so. And we fellows get just the right little sprinkle of family influence, too. It loses its affect when you have it all the time. That's what I tell Truesdaile, when he goes on about home, and what a thing it is to have a sister,--he doesn't exactly say _my_ sister; I suppose he believes in the tenth commandment. By the way, he's knocking round at the seashore some where using up the time. I've half a mind to hunt him up and get him back here for the last week or so. I think he'd like it." "Nonsense, Rod! You can't. When Aunt Euphrasia's away." "She would come back, if you asked her; wouldn't she? I think it would be a charity. Put it to her as an opportunity. She'd drop anything she might be about for an opportunity. I wonder if she ever goes back upon her tracks and finishes up? She's something like a mowing machine: a grand good thing, but needs a scythe to follow round and pick out the stumps and corners." Amy shook her head.