Brand came over after lunch as usual, and heard the news. He looked a bit sober over it, although he congratulated his friend warmly; but once or twice Cornelia caught him looking wistfully at Carey, as if somehow he had suddenly grown away from him; and she realized that it was the first break in their boyhood life. For Carey was a new Carey since the morning, walking with a spring in his step, giving a command in the tone of one who had authority, making a decision as one who had long been accustomed to being recognized as having a right. He had in a single morning become a man, and seemed for the time to have put away childish things. He even declined to take a ride with Brand after dinner, to which Brand had stayed, saying that he had promised to run over to the Kendalls after dinner and try over the music for tomorrow. Ordinarily Brand would have gone along without even being asked, but there was about Carey such a manner of masterfulness, and of being aloof and having grave matters to attend to, that the boy hesitated with a wistful, puzzled look; and, when Cornelia, half sensing his feeling, said, “Well, Brand, you stay here with me, and we’ll go over that music too,” he laughed happily, and sat down again, letting Carey go out by himself. It was altogether plain that Carey didn’t even see it. Carey was exalted. His head was in the clouds, and a happy smile played over his face continually. Brand stayed all the evening till Carey came back at half past ten, still with that happy, exalted smile on his face; and then Brand, with an amused, almost hopeless expression, laughingly bade good night to Cornelia, telling her he’d had “a peach of a time.” Just as he was going out the door he looked back, and said soberly: “I might have a job myself next week. Dad wants me to come in the office with him this summer, and I believe I will.” Then he went away without any of the usual racket and showing off of his noisy car. Carey’s new dignity carried him to church the next morning, and to a special Children’s Day service in the afternoon, where he had been asked to usher; and joy still sat on his face when he returned at four o’clock and lolled around the living room, restless and talking of the morrow, now and then telling some trifling incident of the afternoon, humming over a tune that had been sung, and finally asking Cornelia to play and sing with him the music for the evening. It was altogether so unusual to have Carey at home like this all day Sunday, and seeming to be happy in it, that Cornelia was excitedly happy herself, and every little while Louise would look at him joyously and say, “O Carey, you look so nice in that new suit!” It was like a regular love-feast, and Cornelia began to tell her anxious heart that Carey really was started on the right way. There was no further need to worry about him at all. Perhaps there hadn’t ever been. Perhaps it was all only because he hadn’t had the right kind of job.