“Carey, is anything the matter?” she asked anxiously. “There you are again, doggone it! Now you’ve made me cut myself, and I haven’t another collar. No, of course there isn’t anything the matter. I’m just in a hurry, can’t you _see_? They’re waiting for me!” “Well, but why are you so cross?” “Aw! I’m not cross. I’m just nervous. Now, just look at that collar! It’s just like all my luck.” “I think your laundry came this morning,” volunteered his sister. “Well! Why didn’t you say so? Where is it?” “Look here, Carey,” she said with fire in her eye, “you have no need to be a bear; and, if you want me to get your collar, you’ll have to speak decently, or I won’t have anything more to do with you.” There was silence in the bathroom for the space of half a second; then an obviously controlled voice said: “Pardon me, Nell. I’m almost cr-r-azy. Can’t you see?” “Why, yes!” said his sister significantly, and went swiftly downstairs for the package of laundry. Carey was elaborately polite when she presented it, but he refrained, boy-like from telling her that he was going after a job he had heard about, which would have made the whole affair perfectly reasonable to her. “What business is it of hers?” he reasoned. “And then suppose I didn’t get it?” So he stormed from the house like a whirlwind, leaving no word of when he would return; and Cornelia was too much on her dignity to ask him. She stood at the window, watching him out of sight, the quick tears springing into her eyes. What a boisterous, gay bunch they were, all of them, piling into the car, which started even before they were in. What a noise the car made, as if it too had partaken of the spirit of its owner and went roaring through the world with a daredevil blare and throb of a perverted fire-engine just to attract attention and show the world they didn’t care! Her cheeks grew hot with shame over it, and for some strange reason her imagination conjured up a possible day in the future when that fair lady, her fellow traveller of the other day, with her handsome son should perhaps come to call upon her. How terrible to have it happen when her brother would go roaring away from the house in this wild fashion! Oh, how had Carey ever grown into such a person? So impossible a combination! She came and stood beside the yawning hole in the parlor floor. How hard he had worked. How much in earnest he had been! And then at a snap of the finger from this young lord of creation he had dropped it all and fled on some fool whim or other, who knew? She felt sick and utterly tired, and as if she could not go on with her own work. She had just dropped into a chair and covered her face with her hands when there came a knock at the door. For an instant she meditated not noticing it, but, thinking better of it, hastily brushed her hand across her wet eyes and hurried to answer the knock.