Loretz said, "I don't know that we can decide till Mr. Spener gets back. He went to town this afternoon."
"When will he come?" asked the minister.
"Some time to-morrow—toward night: he usually comes up at six or seven, unless he is detained."
"We might fix the funeral at six: the concert was to begin at seven. I think we may take it for granted that the hours would meet his approval. He would say, if he were here, that we had better decide on the hour ourselves."
"Yes, yes, he would say so, of course," said Loretz quickly, "and he would mean what he said, sir," he added, argumentatively. "Of course: let us then say at six o'clock the procession will move from—from the corpse-house to the church. She has been taken away just as she was in the midst of preparation for the festival; let us therefore observe it even as it would have been observed."
The voice which spoke these words was altogether under the speaker's control, but the pathos in it so moved the heart of dear little Dame Loretz that she exclaimed, "Let it be so, father: certainly, it must be. It would please Sister Benigna beyond anything to have all the little children there just as she had arranged. And who has done for the church more than she has? I am sure it is what—what everybody must see is the right thing. Mr. Wenck, I am very glad you came to talk about it: we were all beside ourselves—we didn't know what to think or what to do."
"Shall it be so, Elise?" asked Loretz, turning to his daughter quietly after his wife had concluded her animated speech.
"I know it would be what she would wish," said Elise.
"Then it shall be. I have a mind to go to town for Mr. Spener. But he will come: he is always on time. He knows when he means to be here, if we don't, and we can't change that."
So it was decided, and Mr. Wenck went away, having declined the entreaty of Mrs. Loretz to fill a seat at their supper-table.