s that shook
his bent shoulders. He was half afraid and half ashamed, but there he
stood and cried. At last he dried his eyes, and went slowly into the
house, as if in hope of comfort as well as shelter.

The two sisters were busy in an upper room. They had seen William
Haydon drive away, and their sympathy had been much moved by the sight
of his father's grief. They stood at a window watching him from behind
the curtain.

"He feels it much as anybody could," said Mrs. Stevens, not without a
certain satisfaction in this tribute to her own dear sister. "Somehow
or 'nother your brother is so methodical and contained, Mis' Martin,
that I shouldn't have looked to see him give way like other men."

"He never was one that could show his feelin's," answered Mrs. Martin.
"I never saw him shed tears before as I know of, but many's the time
he hasn't been able to control his voice to speak. I wonder what made
William hurry off so? His back looked kind o' provoked. They couldn't
have had no words; whatever it was, they couldn't had no words so soon
as this; an' William 's always respectful."

"'T ain't that either," she added, a moment later. "I've seen sights
o' folks in trouble, and I don't know what nor why it is, but they
always have to get through with a fractious spell before they can get
to work again. They'll hold up an' 'pear splendid, and then something
seems to let go, an' everything goes wrong, an' every word plagues
'em. Now Isr'el's my own poor brother, an' you know how I set by him,
Mis' Stevens; but I expect we'll have to walk soft to get along with
him for a week or two to come. Don't you go an' be too gentle,
neither. Treat him just's you would anyway, and he'll fetch himself
into line the quicker. He always did have days when he wouldn't say
nothing to nobody. It does seem's if I ought to be the one to stop
longer with him, an' be the most help; but you know how I'm situated.
And then 't is your sister's things that's to be looked over, and you
and Marilla is the proper ones."

"I wish 't was so you could stop," Mrs. Stevens urged honestly. "I
feel more acquainted with you than I do with Marilly. But I shall do
my best, as I shall want those who come to do for my things when I'm
past an' gone. I shall get William to come an' help us; he knows more
about his mother's possessions than anybody, I expect. She made a kind
of girl of him, for company's sake, when he was little; and he used to
sew real pretty bef