We all stood around, stricken, incredulous.
"Do you mean," said Felix, finding voice at length, "that Peter is going to die?"
The Story Girl nodded miserably.
"They're afraid so."
Cecily sat down by her half filled basket and began to cry. Felicity said violently that she didn't believe it.
"I can't pick another apple to-day and I ain't going to try," said Dan.
None of us could. We went to the grown-ups and told them so; and the grown-ups, with unaccustomed understanding and sympathy, told us that we need not. Then we roamed about in our wretchedness and tried to comfort one another. We avoided the orchard; it was for us too full of happy memories to accord with our bitterness of soul. Instead, we resorted to the spruce wood, where the hush and the sombre shadows and the soft, melancholy sighing of the wind in the branches over us did not jar harshly on our new sorrow.
We could not really believe that Peter was going to die—to die. Old people died. Grown-up people died. Even children of whom we had heard died. But that one of us—of our merry little band—should die was unbelievable. We could not believe it. And yet the possibility struck us in the face like a blow. We sat on the mossy stones under the dark old evergreens and gave ourselves up to wretchedness. We all, even Dan, cried, except the Story Girl.
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