"Peter Greenfield."
"Oh!"
"Did you know him?"
"Yes. Yes, indeed. He was one of my—I am the—I knew him well. He was a good preacher and a splendid man. The Church suffered a great loss in his death."
"His family suffered a worser one, 'cause Mamma got sick and then we had two angels behind the Gates, and no one here to tell us what to do, and Gail not eighteen."
"Tell me about it."
The missionary meeting had long since dissolved into several committee meetings, and the hum of voices in the great auditorium drowned the conversation in the dim recess at the rear of the room; but Peace had entirely forgotten her surroundings, and without restraint she poured out the simple story of her father's sacrifices in her concise, forceful way, laying bare family secrets and relating with telling effect the pathetic struggle of the six sisters left alone to face the battle with the world.
"And then we came to live with Grandpa and Grandma Campbell," she finished. "They are just like truly relations to us, but they can never make up for our own father and mother, any more than we can really take the place of their own little girls which died. Why, has the Conference quit? Everybody's bustling all around the room now. I wonder where Grandma went? Is it time to go home?"
"In a moment or two," replied the man, thoughtfully stroking his smoothly-shaven chin. "Some of the committees are evidently still in session."
"And I never looked at Allee's Album all the while I was here! I had to come, else Grandma couldn't, 'cause the girls are all in school 'xcept Hope, and she has gone to see the iniquities at the Library. So I brought this along to keep myself awake with, 'cause I thought it would likely be a stupid, sleepy meeting today. They always are when a lot of fat old ladies get to talking ecstatics,"—she meant statistics—"but I've had a very nice time listening and watching those funny preachers; and I'm glad you came along to talk to me—"