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 in their lives , got through the day without any exchange of left-handed compliments . Cecily confided to me that she never meant to put her hair up in curlers on Saturday nights again , because it was pretending . She was so anxious to repent of something , sweet girl , and this was all she could think of . During the afternoon Judy Pineau brought up a tear-blotted note from Sara Ray . Sara had not been allowed to visit the hill farm since Peter had developed measles . She was an unhappy little exile , and could only relieve her anguish of soul by daily letters to Cecily , which the faithful and obliging Judy Pineau brought up for her . These epistles were as gushingly underlined as if Sara had been a correspondent of early Victorian days . Cecily did not write back , because Mrs. Ray had decreed that no letters must be taken down from the hill farm lest they carry infection .
Cecily had offered to bake every epistle thoroughly XXXXX the oven before sending it ; but Mrs. Ray was inexorable , and Cecily had to content herself by sending long verbal messages with Judy Pineau .
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