born to best education at the public schools, sewing-machines, and
universal double-skirted full-fashions; and had read novels of
society out of the Roxeter town library.

There was a good deal of time after the bathing and mending and
re-arranging were all done. The axle of the phæton had been split,
and must be temporarily patched up and banded. There was nothing for
Sylvie to do but to sit quietly there in the old-fashioned,
dimity-covered easy-chair which they gave her by the front window,
and wait. Meanwhile, she observed and wondered much.

She had never got out of the Argenter and Highford atmosphere
before. She didn't know--as we don't about the moon--whether there
might _be_ atmosphere for the lesser and subsidiary world. But here
she found herself in the bedroom of two girls who lived over a
bake-shop, and, really, it seemed they actually _did_ live, much
after the fashion of other people. There were towels on the stand, a
worked pincushion on the toilet, white shades and red tassels to the
windows, this comfortable easy-chair beside one and a low splint
rocker in the other,--with queer, antique-looking soft footstools of
dark cloth, tamboured in bright colors before each,--white quilted
covers on table and bureau, and positively, a striped, knitted
foot-spread in scarlet and white yarn, folded across the lower end
of the bed.

She had never thought of there being anything at Ingraham's Corner
but a shop on a dusty street, with, she supposed,--only she never
really supposed about it,--some sort of places, behind and above it,
under the same roof, for the people to get away into when they
weren't selling bread, to cook, and eat, and sleep, she had never