"He always wrote to them, and they must know."
Dot said, in return, that they had not received a letter.
Granny then began to worry in desperate earnest, and besieged every visitor with questions and surmises. Hal was in a sore strait. Of course she must know sometime.
She made herself so nearly sick, that Dr. Meade saw the danger and harm, and felt that she had better know the truth.
"Will you tell her?" faltered Hal.
He undertook the sorrowful office. Tenderly, kindly, and yet it was a cruel wound.
"Oh, it cannot be!" she cried. "God wouldn't take him from me now that I'm old and sick and helpless! Let me see the paper."
They complied with her request, but the doctor had to read it. Her old eyes could not see a word.
"Oh, oh! Drowned in the sea! And I never wanted him to go! My poor darling! who was always so bright, so happy, and who loved his poor old Granny so well! Let me go back to bed now: I don't want to live. They're all up in heaven,—my Joe, and little Joe, and poor Dora. There is no use of staying here."