“Our new organ,” said the official proudly to Cheyne.  “Cost us four thousand dollars, too.  We’ll have to get back to high-license next year to pay for it.  I wasn’t going to let the ministers have all the religion at their convention.  Those are some of our orphans standing up to sing.  My wife taught ’em.  See you again later, Mr. Cheyne.  I’m wanted on the platform.”

High, clear, and true, children’s voices bore down the last noise of those settling into their places.

“O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord:  praise him and magnify him for ever!”

The women throughout the hall leaned forward to look as the reiterated cadences filled the air.  Mrs. Cheyne, with some others, began to breathe short; she had hardly imagined there were so many widows in the world; and instinctively searched for Harvey.  He had found the ‘We’re Heres’ at the back of the audience, and was standing, as by right, between Dan and Disko.  Uncle Salters, returned the night before with Penn, from Pamlico Sound, received him suspiciously.

“Hain’t your folk gone yet?” he grunted.  “What are you doin’ here, young feller?”

“O ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord:  praise him, and magnify him for ever!”

“Hain’t he good right?” said Dan.  “He’s bin there, same as the rest of us.”

“Not in them clothes,” Salters snarled.

“Shut your head, Salters,” said Disko.  “Your bile’s gone back on you.  Stay right where ye are, Harve.”

Then up and spoke the orator of the occasion, another pillar of the municipality, bidding the world welcome to Gloucester, and incidentally pointing out wherein Gloucester excelled the rest of the world.  Then he turned to the sea-wealth of the city, and spoke of the price that must be paid for the yearly harvest.  They would hear later the names of their lost dead one hundred and seventeen of them. (The widows stared a little, and looked at one another here.) Gloucester could not boast any overwhelming mills or factories.  Her sons worked for such wage as the sea gave; and they all knew that neither Georges nor the Banks were cow-pastures.  The utmost that folk ashore could accomplish was to help the widows and the orphans, and after a few general remarks he took this opportunity of thanking, in the name of the city, those who had so public-spiritedly consented to participate in the exercises of the occasion.

“I jest despise the beggin’ pieces in it,” growled Disko.  “It don’t give folk a fair notion of us.”

“Ef folk won’t be fore-handed an’ put by when they’ve the chance,” returned Salters, “it stands in the nature o’ things they hev to be ‘shamed.  You take warnin’ by that, young feller.  Riches endureth but for a season, ef you scatter them araound on lugsuries—­

“But to lose everything, everything,” said Penn.  “What can you do then?  Once I”—­the watery blue eyes stared up and down as if looking for something to steady them—­“once I read—­in a book, I think—­of a boat where every one was run down—­except some one—­and he said to me—­”