“All the more chance for your talents!” said the lady with determined cheerfulness. “I know you have a sense of the beautiful, for I’ve been studying that lovely little hat you wear, and how well it suits your face and tones with your coat and dress and gloves. How ever unpleasant and gloomy that new house may be, it will begin to glow and blossom and give out welcome within a short time after you get there. I should like to look in and prove the truth of my words. Perhaps I shall sometime, who knows? You just can’t help making things fit and beautiful. There’s a look in your face that makes me sure. Count the little house your opportunity, as every trial and test in this world really is, you know, and you’ll see what will come. I know, for I’ve seen it tried again and again.” “But one can’t do much without money,” sighed Cornelia, “and money is what I had hoped to earn.” “You’ll earn it yet, very likely; but, even if you don’t, you’ll do the things. Why, the prettiest studio I ever saw was furnished with old boxes covered with bark and lichens, and cushioned with burlap. The woodwork was cheap pine stained dark, the walls were rough, and there was a fireplace built from common cobblestones. When the tea-kettle began to sing on the hearth, and my friend got out her little cheap teacups from the ten-cent store, I thought it was the prettiest place I ever saw, and all because she had put herself into it and not money, and made everything harmonize. You’ll do it yet. I can see it in your eyes. But here we are at last in the city, and aren’t you going to give me your address? Here’s mine on this card, and I don’t want to lose you now I’ve found you. I want you to come and see me sometime if possible, and if I get back to this city again sometime,—I’m only passing through now, and meeting my son to go on to Washington with him in the morning,—but if I get back this way sometime soon I want to look you up if I may, and see if I didn’t prophesy truly, my dear little Interior Decorator.” This was the kind of admiration Cornelia was used to, and she glowed with pleasure under it, her cheeks looking very pretty against the edge of brown fur on her coat-collar. She hastily scribbled the new address on one of her cards and handed it out with a dubious look, almost as if she would like to recall it. “I haven’t an idea what kind of a place it will be,” she said apologetically. “Father seemed to think I wouldn’t like it at all. Perhaps it won’t be a place I would be proud to have you see me in.” “I’m sure you’ll grace the place, however humble it is,” said the lady with a soft touch of her jewelled hand on Cornelia’s. And just then the train slid into the station and came to a halt. Almost immediately a tall young man strode down the aisle and stood beside the seat. It seemed a miracle how he could have arrived so soon, before the passengers had gathered their bundles ready to get out.