When Cornelia went up to her room and took off her apron, out of its pocket fell a letter which she had received that morning and had been too busy to read. She opened it now. It was a brief, rattling epistle from one of her classmates in college, begging her to put off everything else for a few days and come to a house-party with them all. It was to be down at Atlantic City, near enough to home not to make the trip expensive; and they all were crazy to see her again and tell her all about commencement. She smiled reminiscently as she laid it away in her desk-drawer, and found to her surprise that she had no great desire to go. She knew what the party would be, full of rollicking fun, and care-free every minute of it; but somehow her heart and soul were now in her home and the new life that was opening before her. She wanted to finish the house; to make the white kitchen as charming in its way as the other rooms were getting to be; to help Carey plan a front porch he had said he would build with stone pillars; to set out some plants in the yard, finish the bedrooms, and make out a list of new furniture for the carpenter next door to buy. The minister had said he knew of some people who were refurnishing their house and wanted her professional advice. She wanted to stay and work. Mr. Maxwell was coming to take them all motoring some evening, too; and Brand had declared he would bring his sister around to call, and they would go out to ride. Life was opening up full and beautiful. College and its days seemed far away and almost childish. Tomorrow morning she and Grace Kendall were going to make curtains for one of the Sunday-school classrooms. Carey had promised to help put them up. Oh, life wasn’t half bad! Even Clytie Amabel Dodd did not loom so formidable as earlier in the evening. She knelt and thanked God. CHAPTER XXI When Maxwell finally turned his car cityward it was with the feeling of a naughty boy who had run away from duty and was suddenly confronted by retribution.