And then suddenly, through her preoccupation, she became aware of a hush fallen on the bubbling expectancy of the room. Glancing up from the page, she saw Henry standing in the doorway. Even to unfamiliar eyes there was something strangely arresting in the boy's look, a shocked gravity that cut like a premonition.
"They say Ted Gordon's been killed," he said.
"Practice flight, at camp. Nobody knows any particulars. Cy Jones told Father." The boy's voice sounded dry and hard.
"Are they certain there is no mistake?" his mother asked quietly.
"I guess it's true. Cy said the Gordons had a telegram."
"I must go over at once." Mrs. Cameron rose, putting the letters into Laura's hands, and took off her apron.
"I'll bring the car around for you," said Henry.
"Thank you." She smiled at him and turned to the girls. "You know what we are having for dinner, Laura. Priscilla will help make the shortcake, I'm sure. I will be back as soon as I can."
Mutely the four watched the little car roll out of the yard and down the hill.
"Perhaps she thought she couldn't," hesitated Laura, "and go over there."
A moment of silence held the room. Henry broke it. "Well, we're not going. Let's hear 'em."
"Needn't run away unless you want to," he called after her. "We always read Bob's letters aloud."
So Elliott stayed. Laura's pleasant voice, a bit strained at first, grew steadier as the reading proceeded. Henry sat whittling a stick into the coal-hod, his lips pursed as though for a whistle, but without sound, and still with that odd sober look on his face. Priscilla, all the jumpiness gone out of her, stood very still in the middle of the kitchen floor, a kind of hurt bewilderment in the big dark eyes fixed on Laura's face. Nobody laughed, nobody even chuckled, and yet it was a jolly letter that they read first, full of spirit and life and fun. High-hearted adventure rollicked through it, and the humor that makes light of hardship, and the latest slang of the front adorned its pages with grotesquely picturesque phrases. The Cameron boys were obviously getting a good time out of the war. Bob had got something else, too. The letter had been delayed in transmission and near the end was a sentence, "Brought down my first Hun to-day--great fight! I'll tell you about it next time if after due deliberation I decide the censor will let me."