But the evening was so wonderful, the moonlight so perfect, the company so congenial, that Cornelia found it hard to harbor unpleasant thoughts, and for one evening was care-free and happy. Now and then she thought of her little brother riding afar with young Maxwell, and wondered what they were talking about, and whether they would all know him any better when he got back with Harry. It was always so revealing to have a member of one’s family get really close to everyday living with a person. Then her thoughts would come back to the drifting talk from Grace and Carey in front, and she thought how handsome her brother looked, and how at ease driving the car and talking to this sweet, cultured girl. She remembered his accents when he called Clytie Dodd a fool so vehemently, and compared them with his face as he walked on Chestnut Street, chewing gum, and looking down attentively to his overdressed, ill-behaved companion. Which was the real Carey? And do we all have two people shut up inside ourselves? Or is one the real self and the other a mask? The service which they attended for an hour was intensely interesting, and quite new to Cornelia. She had never seen anything like it before. It was a “conference.” Nobody said for what, and she did not happen to get hold of a program until they were leaving. Mr. Kendall at the desk seemed like a father among his children, or a close friend of them all; and he led their thoughts to the heavenly Father in a most wonderful way, speaking of Him as if He were present always with each one, ready to help in any need, ready to conquer for them; and the thought he left with them at the close of his ten-minute talk was drawn from the verse, “My grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Cornelia listened in wonder, and instantly to her mind sprang once more her own experience of the afternoon and a conviction that she was being watched and guarded and led and _loved_ by an unseen Power. This sense of God had never come to her before. Religion had been a dreamy, mysterious necessity, the wholly respectable and conventional thing to believe in, of course, and a kind of comfortable assurance for the darkness of the beyond. She had never had any particular tendency to the modern doubts. Her mother’s faith and her father’s living had been too real for that; and always, when a teacher had voiced some sceptical flippancy, she had turned away with an inner conviction that the teacher did not know, because there was her mother; and a feeling that she preferred to stick to the faith of her fathers. But as far as concerned any particular reason for doing so, or any particular conviction on her own part, she was absolutely without them.