noon
It is so much easier for girls to come together ; girls of this day , especially , who in all classes get so much more of the same things than their mothers did . Sylvie , authorized by this feeble acquiescence in what made `` no difference , '' went on with her intention of having Ray Ingraham for her intimate friend . She spent many an hour , as the summer wore away , at the time in the afternoon when Mrs. Argenter was always lying down , in the pleasant bedroom over the shop , that looked out under the elm-tree . This was Ray Ingraham 's leisure also ; the bread carts did not come in till tea time , with their returns and orders ; the day 's second baking was in the oven ; she had an hour or two of quiet between the noon business and the night ; then she was always glad to see Sylvie Argenter come down the street with her little purple straw work-basket swinging from her forefinger , or a book in her hand . Sylvie and Ray read new books together from the Dorbury library , and old ones from Mrs. Argenter 's book-shelves . Dot was not so often with them ; her leisure was given more to her flower beds , where all sorts of blooms , -- bright petunias and verbenas , delicate sweet peas and golden lantanas , scarlet bouvardias and snowy deutzias , fairy , fragrant jessamines , white and crimson and rose-tinted fuchsias with their purple hearts , and pansies , poised on their light stems , in every rich color , like beautiful winged things half alighted in a great fluttering flock , -- made a glory and a sweetness in the modest patch of ground between the grape-trellised wall of the house-end and the bricks of the bakery , against which grew , appropriately enough , some strings of hop vines . `` I think it is just the nicest place in the world , '' said Sylvie , in her girlish , unqualified speech , as they all stood there one evening , while Dot was cutting a bouquet for Sylvie 's mother .