Father stepped smiling over to mother’s chair, and stood with his hand resting softly on her ripply brown hair. “This is my guest—my friend,” he said, tenderly looking down at his partner of the years with a wonderful smile, which she answered in kind. “This is the one I asked you to prepare for, and I wanted her to meet our young friends. I wanted her to get an immediate taste of the atmosphere of our home as it now is, as it has been during her absence, thanks to you, Cornelia, our blessed eldest child.” The look he and her mother gave her would have been reward enough for any girl for giving up a dozen college graduations. But, as if that had not been enough for the full and free way in which she had given herself, she lifted her eyes; and there beyond them, standing in the doorway, stood Maxwell with such a look of worshipfulness in his face, as he witnessed this girl receiving her due from her family, as would have repaid a girl for almost any sacrifice. Grace Kendall, coming slowly down the stairs into the pretty room, watched it all contentedly. Everything was as it should be. The mother was the kind of mother she had hoped she would be, and she liked the way Carey sat on the arm of her chair with his arm around the back protectingly. But suddenly Carey lifted his eyes, and saw Grace; and the light of love swept into them. He sprang up, and came to meet her eagerly. Taking her hand as if he were about to present a princess to an audience, he led her to his mother, and said: “Mother, meet the most wonderful girl in the world,” and laid Grace Kendall’s hand in his mother’s. Mrs. Copley took Grace’s rosy face between her two soft white hands, and, reaching up, kissed the sweet girl tenderly amid a little hush of silence that none of the family realized they were perpetrating, until suddenly father awoke to the young girl’s sweet embarrassment, and, reaching out a boyish hand to Maxwell, drew him to his wife’s chair, and said roguishly, “Mother, and now meet the most wonderful man in the world!” and the little silence broke into a joyous tumult while they all went out to the waiting dinner, and did full justice to it with a feeling that that evening was just the real beginning of things. Late that night, as they were going up to bed, Cornelia, lingering for some small preparation for the morning, heard Harry say to his younger sister: “Gee! Lou, it’s good to have mother home again, isn’t it? But somehow even she can’t take Cornie’s place, can she? Didn’t Cornie look pretty tonight?” “She certainly did,” responded the little sister eagerly; “and she certainly is great. We can’t ever spare her again can we, Harry?” “Well, I guess you mighty well better get ready to,” said Harry knowingly. “It looks mighty like to me that Max intends us to spare her pretty soon all right, all right.”