"O, if you would! Mother dreads the very sound of Mr. Cardwell's name, and the thought of business. She cannot bear it now. But your advice would be so different!" Sylvie knew that it would go far with Mrs. Argenter that Mr. Howland Sherrett, in the relation of neighbor and friend, should plan and suggest for them, rather than Mr. Richard Cardwell, a stranger and mere man of business, should come and tell them things that must be. "I'm afraid you'll think I don't realize things, I've planned and imagined so much," Sylvie began again, "but I couldn't help thinking. It is all I have had to do. There's a little house in Upper Dorbury that always seemed to me so pretty and pleasant; and nobody lives there now. At least, it was all shut up the last time I drove by. The house with the corner piazza and the green side yard, and the dark red roof sloping down, just off the road in the shady turn beside the bank that only leads to two other little houses beyond. Do you know?" Mr. Sherrett did know. They were three houses built by members of the same family, some years ago, upon an old village homestead property. Two of them had passed into other hands; one--this one--remained in its original ownership, but had been rented of late; since the war, in which the proprietor had made money, and with it had bought a city residence in Chester Park. "You see we must go where things will be convenient. We can't ride round after them any more. And we could get a girl up there, as other people do, for general housework. I'm afraid mother wouldn't quite like being in the village, but of course there can't be anything that she _would quite_ like, now. And we aren't really separate people any longer; at least, we don't belong to the separate kind of people, and I couldn't bear to be _lonesomely_ separate. It's good to belong to _some_ kind of people; isn't it?" "I think it is very good to belong to _your_ kind, where-ever they are, Miss Sylvie. Tell your mother I say she may be glad of her daughter. I'll find out about the house for you, at any rate. And I'll see Mr. Cardwell; and I'll call again. Good-night, my dear. God bless you!" And the grand Mr. Howland Sherrett pressed Sylvie Argenter's hand in both of his, as a father might have pressed it, and went out with the feeling of a warm rush from his heart toward his eyes. "That's a girl like a--whatever there is that means the noblest sort of woman, and I'm not sure it _is_ a queen!" he said to Rodney, as he seated himself in the chaise, and took the reins from his son's hands. Mr. Sherrett was apt to say to Rodney, "You may drive me to this or that place," but he was very apt, also, to do the driving himself, after all; especially if he was somewhat preoccupied, and forgot, as he did now. The way Mr. Howland Sherrett inquired about the red-roofed house, was this: He went down to Mr. John Horner's store, in Opal Street, and asked him what was the rent of it. "Six hundred and fifty dollars."