“It was your mother that gave me the idea of fixing up this old house on nothing.” She gave a laughing deprecatory glance about. “I was just awfully unhappy and discouraged at having to leave college and go to a poor little house in a new neighborhood, and she managed to leave with me the suggestion of making it all over in such a way that I could not get away from it.”
“You certainly have done wonders,” he said with an admiring look about. “That was one reason I was so anxious to stay and look around me, the rooms opened up so charmingly and were such a surprise. You really have made a wonderful place out of it. This room, now, looks as if it might have come out of the hands of some big city decorator, and yet there is a charm and simplicity about it that is wholly in keeping with a quiet home life. I like it awfully. I wish mother could see it. Were those panels on the walls when you began?”
“Oh, no. There was some horrible old faded red wall-paper, and in some places the plaster was coming off. Carey and I had a lot to do to this wall before we could even paint it. And there were so many layers of paper we thought we never would get it all scraped off.”
“You had to do all that?” said the young man appreciatively. “It was good you had a brother to help in such rough, heavy work.”
“Yes, Carey has been very much interested. Of course he hasn’t had so much time lately, as he could give only his evenings. He has been working all day. He built the fireplace in the living room too. I want you to look at that after dinner. I think it is very pretty for an amateur workman.”
“He built that fireplace!” exclaimed Maxwell. “Well, he certainly did a great thing! I noticed it at once. It is the charm of the whole room, and so artistic in its lines. I love a beautiful fireplace, and I thought that was most unusual. I must look at it again. Your brother must be a genius.”
“No, not a genius,” said Cornelia. “But he always could make anything he wanted to. He is very clever with tools and machinery, and seems to know by instinct how everything is made. When he was a little boy, I remember, he used to take everything in the house apart and put it together again. I shall never forget the day mother got her new carpet-sweeper and was about to sweep the parlor, and was called away to answer a knock at the back door. When she came back Carey had the whole thing apart, strewn all around the room; and mother sat down in dismay, and began to scold him. Then she told him sadly that he must go upstairs to bed for punishment; and he looked up and said, ‘Why, muvver, don’t you want me to put it together again first?’ And he did. He put it all together so it worked all right, and managed to get out of his punishment that time.”
Maxwell glanced down the table at the bright, clever face of the young man who was eagerly describing to Grace Kendall an automobile race he had witnessed not long ago.
“That’s a great gift!” he commented. “Your brother ought to make a business success in life. What did you say he is doing?”
Cornelia flushed painfully.