The "little angels" shot dead in cold blood by Martin Bryant were close sisters who loved to play together and go to Sunday school and play dress ups.
Six-year-old Alanah Mikac was the little girl shot dead by Bryant, 28, from New Town, in Hobart on Sunday after she saw her mother Nannette and sister Madeline, 3, gunned down.
Alanah was shot after fleeing to take cover behind a tree.
Bryant hunted her down and fired a bullet into her.
Friends and neighbours told yesterday how little Alanah loved to dress up and wear make-up like her mother and take care of Madeline.
"She and her sister were little angels," her grandfather said yesterday.
He was speaking outside the family home at Nubeena as he tried to come to terms with the cruel deaths of his only grandchildren.
Mr Mikac and his wife flew down from Melbourne on Monday when they heard about the massacre.
They comforted their son Walter, who turned 34 on Monday just a day after his family were killed. In the quaint brick house named Warringa overlooking picturesque Nubeena Bay.
Last Christmas, Alanah and Madeline had dressed up as angels for their Sunday school Christmas anniversary at the local Church of Christ parish.
The girls both received book prizes for their attendance record, said neighbour Pamela Williams whose husband Darcy is the Sunday school superintendent.
"They were beautiful little girls. Alanah was six going on eight and she was a real little mother," Mrs Williams said.
"You would see her walking down the street holding hands with her sister and little friends. Alanah was just a real bright little button."
In the 1995 Tasman District High School year book, Alanah drew a picture of herself for the art work contribution for the class.
She drew herself complete with full eyelashes and long dark pigtails with a shopping basket slung over her arm.
Underneath were the words: "I like playing dress ups. This is me with a handbag going shopping."
It was signed Alanah.
As the small towns of Nubeena and Port Arthur tried to understand the tragedy, two local men laid 23 white daisies out along the entrance to the historic penal colony where Nannette Mikac had worked as a ghost tour operator before her death.
In the middle of the long row of flowers, they placed three bright yellow daisies for Nannette, Alanah and Madeline -- just 200m from where they were slain.
[images: "One of Alanah Mikac's school drawings" (7.5x10)
"Madeline and Alanah Mikac" Courtesy Channel 9 (7.5x7) ]