`` We 'll have to be awful good , you know , '' warned Cecily . `` There 's no use praying if you 're not good . '' `` That will be easy , '' sighed Felicity . `` I do n't feel a bit like being bad . If anything happens to Peter I feel sure I 'll never be naughty again . I wo n't have the heart . '' We did , indeed , pray most sincerely for Peter 's recovery . We did not , as in the case of Paddy , `` tack it on after more important things , '' but put it in the very forefront of our petitions . Even skeptical Dan prayed , his skepticism falling away from him like a discarded garment in this valley of the shadow , which sifts out hearts and tries souls , until we all , grown-up or children , realize our weakness , and , finding that our own puny strength is as a reed shaken in the wind , creep back humbly to the God we have vainly dreamed we could do without . Peter was no better the next day . Aunt Olivia reported that his mother was broken-hearted . We did not again ask to be released from work . Instead , we went at it with feverish zeal . If we worked hard there was less time for grief and grievious thoughts . We picked apples and dragged them to the granary doggedly . In the afternoon Aunt Janet brought us a lunch of apple turnovers ; but we could not eat them . Peter , as Felicity reminded us with a burst of tears , had been so fond of apple turnovers . And , oh , how good we were ! How angelically and unnaturally good ! Never was there such a band of kind , sweet-tempered , unselfish children in any orchard .
Even Felicity and Dan , for once XXXXX their lives , got through the day without any exchange of left-handed compliments .
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