"Argie" in New York,--gone thither on some perplexing, hurried
errand, which he had only half told her, and the half telling of
which she had only half heard,--and remembered that the heat must be
"awful" there. But to-night he would be on board the splendid Sound
steamer, coming home; and to-morrow, if this lasted, she would
surely speak to him about getting off for a while to Rye, or Mount
Desert.

She came by and by to the end of her volume, and found that the
serial she was following ran on into the next.

"Provoking," she said, tossing it down to the end of the sofa, "and
neither Sylvie nor I can get into town in this heat, and Argie
thinks it such a bother to be asked to go to Loring's."

Just then Sylvie's step came lightly up the stairs. She looked into
the large cool dressing-room where her mother lay.

"I'm only up for my 'Confession Album'," she said. "But O Mater
Amata! if you'd just come down and help me through! I know they'd
stay to tea and go home in the cool, if I only knew how to ask them;
but if I said a word I should be sure to drive them away. _You_ can
do it; and they would if you came. Please do!"

"You silly child! Won't you ever be able to do anything yourself?
When you were a little girl, you wouldn't carry a message, because
you could get into a house, but didn't know how to get out! And now
you are grown up, you can get people into the house to see you, but
you don't know how to ask them to stay to tea! What _shall_ I ever
do with you?"