Presently another of the cousins sat down at the piano and played the "Battle of Prague."
Then Aunt Frasie said, "Do sing something. It doesn't seem half like music without the singing."
Maria Jane ran her fingers over the keys, and began a plaintive air very much in vogue:
"Shed not a tear o'er your friend's early bier,
When I am gone, I am gone."
Aunt Frasie heard her through the first verse, and then said impatiently:
"You've sung that at so many funerals, Maria Jane, that it makes me feel creepy. You used to sing 'Banks and Braes.' Do try that."
It had been said of Maria Jane in her earlier years that she had sung "Bonnie Doon" so pathetically she had moved the roomful to tears. Her voice was rather thin now, with a touch of shrillness on the high notes, but the little girl listened entranced. Then she sang "Scots wha' hae" and "Roy's wife of Aldivaloch." Margaret had come home, the supper-table was spread, the men came in, and they sat down to the feast. They teased Steve a little, and bade John beware, and were so merry all the evening that when it came her bedtime the little girl had forgotten all about the world coming to an end.
The girls discussed it the next day. Most of their mothers and fathers had scouted the idea. Josie Dean was very positive it couldn't be—her father had been going over the Bible and the Millerites had made a big mistake.
"And girls," said Josie earnestly, "St. John, one of the disciples of our Saviour, lived to be a hundred years old. Some people taught that the world would come to an end before he died. And now it's 1843, and it's stood all this while, though every now and then there's been an excitement about it. And I ain't going to be afraid at all, there now!"
The little girl wondered whether she would be afraid. But Friday evening the boys were full of it, and Steve said it was nonsense. She crept up into her father's lap and asked him in a tremulous whisper if he was afraid.