"Then come on. I'm ready," responded Peace, hopping nimbly down the stairway. "Doesn't it seem funny to see me going to Sunday School again? What do you s'pose folks will say when I hobble in all by myself? Won't it be great to see the s'prise on Miss Gordon's face when I go into my old class with the rest of the girls? I made Gail and Faith and everyone else promise not to tell her I would be there today. I want to s'prise her. Just smell the roses! They ain't all gone yet. And someone's been mowing grass! Isn't it perfectly lovely out-of-doors today? Why, there's the church! I'd no idea we were so near. It hasn't changed a bit, has it? But it seems as if it was years since I was there last."
So Peace chattered blithely on, and Mrs. Campbell, watching her, felt a great lump rise in her throat. Peace, their own laughing, sunshiny, irrepressible Peace had come back to them once more. It was a song of thanksgiving that her heart was singing, yet her eyes were filled with tears.
"There is Myrtie Musgrove!" Mrs. Campbell's meditations were interrupted by the girl's enthusiastic exclamation, and with a start of surprise she saw the great stone edifice looming up directly in front of them, with scores of spick and spandy boys and girls assembled on the lawn, waiting for the church service to come to a close.
"And there's Gertrude Miller and Dorothy Bartow," said Allee. "Everyone is out today."
"No wonder," returned Peace. "It's such a lovely day. I don't see how anyone could stay at home. Hello, Myrtie and Nina and Fannie and Julia and Rosalie, and oh, everyone!"
A chorus of delighted cries greeted her, and immediately the two sisters were swallowed up by a group of excited, clamoring schoolmates, while Mrs. Campbell, from the background, watched the pretty tableau.
Suddenly the strains of the Doxology rolled out on the summer air through the open church windows, followed by a brief silence, and then the great doors swung open and the motley congregation thronged out into the sunshine.
"Church is over," said Peace, as she saw the people hurrying past. "Let's go inside."
"O, Peace," cried an eager voice at her elbow, as she climbed the stone steps to the vestibule, "Miss Gordon told me to give this to you—"