anybody believe it, though. What is the matter with Joy and me? You
didn't say."

"You've forgotten something, I think."

"Forgotten something?"

"Yes--something you read me once out of an old Book."

"Book? Oh!" said Gypsy, beginning to understand.

"In honor preferring one another," said Peace, softly. Gypsy did not say
anything. Peace took up her Bible that lay on the bed beside her--it
always lay on the bed--and turned the leaves, and laid her finger on
the verse. Gypsy read it through before she spoke. Then she said slowly:

"Why, Peace Maythorne. I--never could--in this world--never."

Just then there came a knock at the door. Gypsy went to open it, and
stood struck dumb for amazement. It was Joy.

"Auntie said it was supper-time, and you were to come home," began Joy,
somewhat embarrassed. "She was going to send Winnie, but I thought I'd
come."

"Why, I never!" said Gypsy, still standing with the door-knob in her
hand.

"Is this your cousin?" spoke up Peace.

"Oh, yes, I forgot. This is Peace Maythorne, Joy."

"I am glad to see you," said Peace in her pleasant way; "won't you come
in?"

"Well, perhaps I will, a minute," said Joy, awkwardly, taking a chair by
the window, and wondering if Gypsy had told Peace what she said. But
Peace was so cordial, her voice so quiet, and her eyes so kind, that she
concluded she knew nothing about it, and soon felt quite at her ease.
Everybody was at ease with Peace Maythorne.

"How pleasant it is here!" said Joy, looking about the room in unfeigned
astonishment. And indeed it was. The furniture was poor enough, but
everything was as neat as fresh wax, and the sunlight, that somehow or
other always sought that room the earliest, and left it the latest--the
warm, shimmering sunlight that Peace so loved--was yellow on the old,
faded carpet, on the paperless, pictureless wall, on the bed where the
hands of Peace lay, patient and folded.

"It _is_ pleasant," said Peace, heartily. "You don't know how thankful
it makes me. Aunt came very near taking a room on the north side.
Sometimes I really don't know what I should have done. But then I guess
I should have found something else to like."

_I should have found something else._ A sudden thought came to the two
girls then, in a dim, childish way--a thought they could by no means
have explained; they wondered if in those few words did not lie the key
to Peace Maythorne's beautiful, sorrowful life. They would not have