The Highfords had come and "called," in the carriage, with pearl-kid
gloves and long-tailed carriage dresses; called in such a way that
Sylvie knew they would probably never call again. It was a last
shading off of the old acquaintance; a decent remembrance of them in
their low estate, just not to be snobbish on the vulgar face of it;
a visit that had sent her mother to bed with a mortified and
exasperated headache, and taken away her slight appetite for the
delicate little "tea" that Sylvie brought up to her on a tray.

The Ingrahams saw she really meant it, and they came in one evening
at first, when they were walking by, and Sylvie sat alone, with a
book, in the twilight, on the corner piazza. Her mother had been
there; her easy-chair stood beside the open window, but she had gone
in and lain down upon the sofa. Mrs. Argenter had drooped,
physically, ever since the grief and change. It depends upon what
one's life is, and where is the spring of it, and what it feeds
upon, how one rallies from a shock of any sort. The ozone had been
taken out of her atmosphere. There was nothing in all the sweet
sunshine of generous days, or the rest of calm-brooding nights, to
restore her, or to belong to her any more. She had nothing to
breathe. She had nothing to grow to, or to put herself in rapport
with. She was out of relation with all the great, full world.

"Whom did you have there?" she asked Sylvie, when Ray and Dot were
gone, and she came in to see if her mother would like anything.

"The Ingrahams, mother; our neighbors, you know; they are nice
girls; I like them. And they were very kind to me the day of my
accident, you remember. I called first, you see! And besides," she