“What does she say?” whispered Gertrude, dropping her fork so that it rattled against her plate. Gertrude was always dropping things, but this time she didn’t flush, as she usually did, at her own awkwardness.
Elliott picked up the letter Father Bob had left beside her plate. She dreaded to unfold the single sheet, but what else could she do, with all those pairs of anxious eyes fixed on her? She steadied her voice and read slowly and without a trace of expression:
“Sidney had a bad time in the night, but is resting more easily this morning. Mother never leaves him. Every one is so good to us here. His officers seem to think a lot of Sid. So do the men of his company, as far as we have seen them. I don’t know what to write you, Father. The doctor says, ‘While there’s life there’s hope, and that our coming is the only thing that has saved Sid so far. He says that he has seen the sickest of boys pull through with their mothers here. We will telegraph when there is any change. Love to all of you, dear ones, and 230 tell Elliott I shall never forget what she has done for me.
“Laura”
The room was very still for a minute. Elliott kept her eyes on the letter, to hide the tears that filled them. Sidney was going to die; she knew it.
Slowly, silently, one after another, they all got up from the table. The boys filed out into the kitchen, washed their hands at the sink, and still without a word went about their work. Gertrude and Priscilla began mechanically to clear the table. A plate crashed to the floor from Gertrude’s hands and shattered to fragments. She stared at the pieces stupidly, as though wondering how they had come there, took a step in the direction of the dust-pan, and, suddenly bursting into tears, turned and ran out of the room. Elliott could hear her feet pounding up-stairs, on, on, till they reached the attic. A door slammed and all was quiet.
Down in the kitchen Elliott and Priscilla faced each other. Great round drops were running down Priscilla’s cheeks, but she looked up at Elliott trustfully. And then Elliott failed her. She knew herself that she was failing. But it seemed as though she just couldn’t keep from crying. “Oh, dear!” she sighed. “Oh, dear, isn’t everything just awful!” Then she did cry.
And over Priscilla’s sober little face—Elliott wasn’t so blinded by her tears that she failed to see it—came the queerest expression of stupefaction and woe and utter forlornness. It was after that that Elliott heard Priscilla sobbing in the china-closet.
Her first impulse was to go to the closet and pull the child out. Her second was to let her stay. “She may as well have her cry out,” thought the girl, unhappily. “I couldn’t do anything to comfort her!”—which 232 shows how very, very, very miserable Elliott was, herself.