serene kind of sadness. It grew
from the inside out--now and then almost escaping in a sigh. Because it
couldn't quite escape, it hurt; she envied the locusts who were letting
their sadness escape in that reiterant, tranquil song.

She was glad when, at last, grandpa said:

"How'd you like to go in and play me a tune, Missy?"

"Oh, I'd love to, grandpa!" Missy jumped up eagerly.

So grandpa lighted the parlour lamp, whose crystal bangles now looked
like enormous diamonds; and a delicious time commenced. Grandpa got out
his cloth-covered hymnal, and she played again those hymns which mingle
so inexplicably with the feelings inside you. Not even her difficulties
with the organ--such as forgetting occasionally to treadle, or having
the keys pop up soundlessly from under her fingers--could mar that
feeling. Especially when grandpa added his bass to the music, a deep
bass so impressive as to make it improper to question its harmony, even
in your own mind.

Grandma had come in and seated herself in her little willow rocker;
she was rocking in time to the music, her eyes closed, and saying
nothing--just listening to the two of them. And, playing those hymns,
with grandpa singing and grandma listening, the new religious feeling
grew and grew and grew in Missy till it seemed to flow out of her and
fill the room. It flowed on out and filled the yard, the town, the
world; and upward, upward, upward--she was one with the sky and moon and
stars...

At last, in a little lull, grandpa said:

"Now, Missy, my song--you know."

Missy knew very well what grandpa's favourite was; it was one of the
first pieces she had learned by heart. So she played for him "Silver
Threads among the Gold."

"Thanks, baby," said grandpa when she had finished. There was a
suspicious brightness in his eyes. And a suspicious brightness in
grandma's, too. So, though she wasn't unhappy at all, she felt her own
eyes grow moist. Grandpa and grandma weren't really unhappy, either.
Why, when people are not really unhappy at all, do their eyes fill just
of themselves?

And now was the moment of the great surprise at hand. Missy could
scarcely wait. It must be admitted that, during the interminable time
that grandpa was reading his chapter--it was even a longer chapter than
usual to-night--and while grandma was reading her shorter one, Missy was
not attending. She was repeating to herself the Twenty-third Psalm.
And even when they all knelt, grandpa besi