He hurried out, still with that preoccupied air, leaving his children sitting bewildered at the table.
“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.
With tender thoughts and skilful hands Cornelia prepared the festive dinner the next evening, and arranged a profusion of flowers everywhere. A few great luscious chrysanthemums, golden and white, lifting their tall globes in stately beauty from the gray jar in the living room; wild, riotous crimson and yellow and tawny brown, of the outdoor smaller variety, overflowing vases and bowls in the window-seats and on the stair-landing; a magnificent spray of brilliant maple leaves that Harry brought in from the woods before he went to school gracing the stone-chimney above the mantel; and on the dining table, glowing and sweet, a bowl of deep red roses, with a few exquisite white buds among them, the kind she knew her father liked because her mother loved them. There was nothing ostentatious or showy about the simple arrangement, nothing to make the member of the firm feel that the extra thousand dollars would be wasted in show. It was all simple, sweet, homelike, and in good taste.
There was stewed chicken, with little biscuits and currant jelly, mashed potatoes, and succotash, and for dessert ice-cream and angel cake. A simple, old-fashioned dinner without olives or salads. She knew that would please her father best, because it was her mother’s company dinner. It was the dinner he and mother had on their wedding-trip, and would always continue to be the best of eating to his old-fashioned mind. Doubtless the old-fashioned member of the firm would enjoy it for the same reason. So Cornelia hummed a little carol as she went about stirring up the thickening for the gravy, stopping to fasten Louise’s pretty sprigged challis dress with the crimson velvet ribbon trimming, and smiling to herself that all was going well. She could hear Carey upstairs getting dressed, and Harry was already stumping downstairs. Everything was all ready. There were five minutes to spare before father had said he would arrive with his company. Grace had gone up to smooth her hair after being out all the afternoon in the wind, and Maxwell had telephoned that he was on the way and would not delay them.
Then, just as she finished taking up the chicken and went into the living room to be sure Carey hadn’t left his coat and hat lying around on the piano or table, as he sometimes did, a taxi drew up at the door.