“There’s the last of Laura,” she whimpered. “There’s the last of my dear sister for me.”

Aunt Wess’ fixed her with a distressful gaze. She sniffed once or twice, and then began fumbling in her reticule for her handkerchief.

“If only her dear father were here,” she whispered huskily. “And to think that’s the same little girl I used to rap on the head with my thimble for annoying the cat! Oh, if Jonas could be here this day.”

“She’ll never be the same to me after now,” sobbed Page, and as she spoke the Gretry girl, hypnotised with emotion and taken all unawares, gave vent to a shrill hiccup, a veritable yelp, that woke an explosive echo in every corner of the building.

Page could not restrain a giggle, and the giggle strangled with the sobs in her throat, so that the little girl was not far from hysterics.

And just then a sonorous voice, magnificent, orotund, began suddenly from the chancel with the words: