“Amos Lee has just come in. It's a terrible thing, Ellen.”
“Yes, it's terrible,” returned Ellen, in a quick, strained voice. She entered the sitting-room, and when she met her mother's anxious, tender eyes, she stood back against the wall, with her hands to her face, sobbing. Fanny ran to her, but her grandmother was quicker. She had her arms around the girl before the mother had a chance.
“If they couldn't get somebody besides you,” she said, in a voice of intensest love and anger, “I should call it pretty work. Now you go straight to bed, Ellen Brewster, and I'm goin' to make a bowl of sage tea, and bring it up, and see if it won't quiet your nerves. I call it pretty work.”
“Yes, you'd better go to bed, Ellen,” said Andrew, gulping as if he were swallowing a sob.
Mrs. Zelotes fairly forced Ellen towards the door, Fanny following.
“Don't talk and wake Amabel,” whispered Ellen, forcing back her sobs.
“Was he dead when you got there, Ellen?” called out Lee.
Mrs. Zelotes turned back and looked at him. “It's after midnight, and time for you to be goin' home,” she said. Then the three disappeared. Lee grinned sheepishly at Andrew.
“Your mother is a stepper of an old woman,” said he.
“It's awful news,” said Andrew, soberly. “Whatever anybody may have felt, nobody expected—”