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 shows how very, very, very miserable Elliott was,
herself.

The world was topsyturvy and would never get right again.

Instead of going for Priscilla she went for a dust-pan and brush and
collected the fragments of broken china. Then she began to pile up the
dishes, but, after a few futile movements, sat down in a chair and
cried again. It didn't seem worth while to do anything else. So now
there were three girls crying all at once in that house and every one
of them in a different place. When at last Elliott did look in the
closet Priscilla wasn't there.

The appearance of that usually spotless kitchen had a queer effect on
Elliott. She saw so many things needing to be done at once that she
didn't do any of them. She simply stood and stared hopelessly at the
wreck of comfort and cleanliness and good cheer.

"Hello!" said Bruce at the door. "Want an extra hand for an hour?"

"I thought you were cutting ensilage," said Elliott. It was good to
see Bruce; the courage in his voice