Great news had been coming from the sanitarium where the mother was taking the rest-cure. The nurse said that she grew decidedly better from the day the letter arrived telling how Carey was singing in the church choir and going to Christian Endeavor, and building a front porch. The nurse’s letter did not show that she laid any greater stress on any one of these occupations than on the others, but Cornelia knew that her mother’s heart was rejoicing that the boy had found a place in the church of God where he was interested enough to go to work. In her very next letter she told about the minister’s people, and described Grace Kendall, telling of Carey’s friendship for her. Again the nurse wrote how much good that letter had done the mother, so that she sat up for quite a little while that day without feeling any ill effects from it. Cornelia began to wonder whether Clytie had been at the bottom of some of her mother’s trouble, and to congratulate herself on the fact that Clytie had suffered eclipse at last. About this time Maxwell arrived one evening while Carey was putting the finishing-touches to the front porch, and instead of coming in as was his custom, he sat down on a pile of floor-boards and talked with Carey. Cornelia, hearing low, earnest voices, stepped quietly to the window and looked out, wondering to see Maxwell talking so earnestly with her brother. She felt proud that the older young man was interested enough in him to linger and talk, and wondered whether it might be politics or the last baseball score that was absorbing them. Then she heard Maxwell say: “You’ll be there at eight tomorrow morning, will you? He wants to talk with you in his private office before the rush of the day begins.” In a moment more Maxwell came into the house, bringing with him a great box of gorgeous roses, and in her joy over the roses, arranging them in vases, she forgot to wonder what Maxwell and her brother had been talking about. He might have told her, perhaps, but they were interrupted almost immediately, much to her disappointment, by callers. First, the carpenter next door ran in to say he was building a bungalow in a new suburb for a bride and groom, and the man wanted to furnish the house throughout before he brought his wife home, to surprise her. The bride didn’t know he was building, but thought they would have to board for a while; and he wanted everything pretty and shipshape for her before she came, so they could go right in and begin to live. He didn’t have a lot of money for furnishing, and the carpenter had found out about it, and told him about Cornelia. Would she undertake the job on a percentage basis, taking for selecting the things ten per cent. say, on what they cost, and charging her usual prices for any work she had to do?