“Well, I’ll be hanged! What’s dad got up his sleeve, I’d like to know? I never saw him act like that, did you, Cornie? Just a promotion! That’s all! A mere little matter of a thousand more a year! Mere trifle, of course. Tell us the details another time! I say, Cornie, what’s up?” But Cornelia was as puzzled as her brother. “Perhaps he’s going to bring home one of the firm,” she said. “We must make the house as fine as possible. Father doesn’t have many parties, and we’ll make this a really great occasion if we can. Strange he wanted to have others present, though. I wonder if he really ought. Hadn’t I better talk it over with him again Carey? If it’s one of the firm, he would think it very queer to have outsiders.” “Grace Kendall isn’t an outsider!” blustered up Carey. “No, don’t bother dad about it any further. He told you what he wanted; ask them, of course. Max didn’t cut his eye-teeth last year, either; they both know how to keep in the background when it’s necessary. Anything I can do tonight before I go to choir rehearsal to help get ready for tomorrow?” They bustled about happily, getting the house in matchless order. It was something they had learned to do together beautifully, each taking a task and rushing it through, meanwhile all singing at the top of their lungs some of the hymns that had been sung at the last Sunday’s service, or a bit of a melody they had sung the last time Grace and Maxwell had been over. One voice would boom out from the top of the stairs, where Harry was wiping the dust from the stair railing and steps; another from the living room where Carey was adjusting a curtain-pole that had fallen; Cornelia’s voice from the kitchen and pantry in a clear, sweet soprano; with Louise’s bird-like alto in the dining-room, where she was setting the table for breakfast. They were all especially happy that evening somehow. A raise! A thousand more a year! Now mother could be given more comforts and get well sooner! Now father would not have to work so late at night going over miserable account-books for people, to earn a little extra money. There was a song in Cornelia’s heart as well as on her lips. She was remembering the words of her little brother and sister in that despairing conference she had overheard the first morning after her arrival and comparing them with what had been said to her tonight; and she was thinking how thankful she was for her home-coming just when it had been, and how she would not have lost the last five months out of her life just as it had been for worlds.