Now and then Brand would order Carey to “doll up,” and would whirl him away in his car to see a man somewhere with the hope of a position; but as yet nothing had come of these various expeditions, although Carey was always hopeful and kept telling about a new “lead,” as he called it, with the same joyous assurance of youth. Brand, too, had been drawn into the young people’s choir, and took a sudden interest in Sunday-night church. Once he went with Cornelia, and found the place in the hymn book for her, and sang lustily at her side. The next Sunday he was sitting up in the choir loft beside Carey and acting as if he were one of the chief pillars in that church. It was wonderful how eagerly he grasped a thing that caught his interest. He had a wild, care-free, loving nature, and bubbled over with life and recklessness; but he was easily led if anybody chose to give him a little friendship. It seemed that he led a starved life so far as loving care was concerned, and he accepted eagerly any little favor done for him. Cornelia soon found that he grew pleasantly into the little family group; and even the children accepted and loved him, and often depended upon him. Arthur Maxwell, too, had become an intimate friend of the family circle, and since Harry had come back from his trip to the mountains he could talk of nothing else but “Mr. Maxwell says this and Mr. Maxwell does that,” till the family began gently to poke fun at him about it. Nevertheless, they were well pleased that they had such a friend. He came down one day, and took Cornelia off for the whole afternoon on a wonderful drive in the country. They brought back a great basket of fruit and armfuls of wild flowers and vines. Another day he took her to a nursery where they selected some vines for the front porch, some climbing roses and young hedge-plants, which he proceeded to set out for her on their return. Then next day a big box of chocolates was delivered at the door with his card. But his mother had not been out for her promised visit yet; for she had been called away on a business trip to California the day after she reached home, and had decided to remain with her relatives there for a month or six weeks. Cornelia as she daily beautified her pretty home kept wondering what Mrs. Maxwell would say to it when she did come. But most of all she wondered about her own dear mother, and what she would say to the glorified old house when she got back to it again.