ht was, wasn't the most imperative business in hand.
Somehow or other those things weren't at all what came into her mind
when she thought of Aunt Jessica--no, indeed, though Aunt Jessica made
such perfectly delicious things to eat. What came into her mind was
far different--like the way Aunt Jessica had sat on Elliott's bed and
kissed her, that homesick first night; Aunt Jessica's face at
meal-time, with Uncle Bob across the table and all her boys and girls
filling the space between; Aunt Jessica comforting Priscilla when the
child had met with some mishap. Priscilla seldom cried when she hurt
herself; "Mother kisses the place and makes it well." The words linked
themselves with Bruce's in Elliott's thought. Was that what he had
meant by morale? She couldn't have put into words what she understood
just then. For a minute a door in her brain seemed to swing open and
she saw straight into the heart of things. Then it clicked together
and left her saying, "I guess I fell down on that part of my job,
Mother Jess."

Elliott hung up her apron and mounted the stairs. She didn't stop with
the second floor and her own little room, but kept right on to the
attic. There was a door at the head of the attic stairs. Elliott
pushed it open. On a broken-backed horsehair sofa Gertrude lay, face
down, her nose buried in a faded pillow. In a wabbly rocker, at
imminent risk of a breakdown, Priscilla jerked back and forth.
Gertrude's hair was tousled and Priscilla's face was tear-stained and
swollen.

"Don't you think," Elliott suggested, "it is time we girls washed our
faces and made ourselves pretty?"

"I left you all the dishes to do." Gertrude's voice was muffled by the
pillow. "I--I just couldn't help it."

"That's all right. They're done now. I didn't do them, either. Let's
go down-stairs and wash up."

"I don't want to be pretty," Priscilla objected, continuing to rock.
Gertrude neither moved nor spoke again.

What should Elliott do? She remembered Bruce.

"We haven't had any telegram, you know," she said. Nobody spoke.
"Well, then, we were three little geese, weren't we? Not having had a
telegram means a lot just now." Priscilla stopped rocking.

"I'm going to believe Sidney will get well," Elliott continued. It was
hard work to talk to such unresponsive ears, but she kept right on.
"And now I am going down-stairs to put on one of my prettiest dresses,
so as to look cheerful for supper. You may try whether you can get
in