from church. There were father and mother, grandpa and grandma
Merriam who lived in the south part of town, Aunt Nettie, and Cousin
Pete Merriam. Cousin Pete's mother was dead and his father out in
California on a long business trip, so he was spending that summer
in Cherryvale with his grandparents.

Melissa admired Cousin Pete very much, for he was big and handsome
and wore more stylish-looking clothes than did most of the young men
in Cherryvale. Also, he was very old--nineteen, and a sophomore at
the State University. Very old. Naturally he was much wiser than
Missy, for all her acquired wisdom. She stood in awe of him. He had
a way of asking her absurd, foolish questions about things that
everybody knew; and when, to be polite, she had to answer him
seriously in his own foolish vein, he would laugh at her! So, though
she admired him, she always had an impulse to run away from him. She
would have liked, now, in this heavenly, religious mood, to run away
lest he might ask her embarrassing questions about it. But, before
she had the chance, grandpa said:

"Why Missy, playing hymns? You'll be church organist before we know
it!"

Missy blushed.

"'Asleep in Jesus' is my favourite, I think," commented grandma.
"It's the one I'd like sung over me at the last. Play it again,
dear."

But Pete had picked up a sheet of music from the top of the piano.