"What do you think?" Philip returned, troubled.
"Oh, I couldn't---" Betts began, choking.
Jimmy gave them all a disgusted and astonished look.
"Gee, why not?" he demanded. "Jo used to love it!"
"How about it, Sue?" Philip asked. Susan stopped short in her work, her hands full of violets, and pondered.
"I think we ought to," she said at last.
"I do, too!" Billy supported her unexpectedly. "Jo'd be the first to say so. And if we don't this Christmas, we never will again!"
"Your mother taught you to," Susan said, earnestly, "and she didn't stop it when your father died. We'll have other breaks in the circle some day, but we'll want to go right on doing it, and teaching our own children to do it!"
"Yes, you're right," said Anna, "that settles it."
Nothing more was said on the subject; the girls busied themselves with the dinner dishes. Phil and Billy drew the nails from the waiting Christmas boxes. Jim cracked nuts for the Christmas dinner. It was after nine o'clock when the kitchen was in order, the breakfast table set, and the sitting-room made ready for the evening's excitement. Then Susan went to the old square piano and opened it, and Phil, in absolute silence, found her the music she wanted among the long-unused sheets of music on the piano.