Down they came, tiptoeing in their bare feet, Rose heading the penitential procession. She knelt by her mother's side, and March and Budd and Cherry knelt, too.
Then, to their mother's, "Are you truly ready, children?" they answered heartily, "Yes, Martie."
Together they said in subdued but earnest tones, "Our Father;" together they prayed, "'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us'"--and after the heart-felt, "Amen," each received a kiss by way of absolution; and together, until the clock struck ten, they talked the whole matter over and resolved to fight their Apollyons daily and hourly, and, with God's grace, conquer them.
These were the rare hours, the memory of which held March Blossom in the way of right and honor when he went out to battle for himself in the world. These were the hours, the memory of which kept him in his college days unspotted from the world. It was such an hour that ripened Rose Blossom into a thinking, feeling woman, and made Budd into a knight of the Twentieth Century.
It was for such an hour that Jack Sherrill would have given his entire fortune.
XIII
A SOCIAL ADDITION
It was a chastened household that gathered about the breakfast table the next morning; and for a week afterwards, every one was so thoughtful and considerate of everybody else that Mrs. Blossom said, laughing, to her husband; "They 're so angelic, Ben, I 'm afraid they are all going to be ill. I declare, I miss their little naughtinesses."
Several things had been settled during the week and, apparently, to everyone's satisfaction. At a very serious-minded meeting of the N.B.B.O.O., it had been decided to keep the larger part of the money in order to start March on his career. Not without protest, however, on March's part. But he was overruled. Rose argued that if he were going to college, he must begin to prepare that very winter, and if their earnings were divided among the five, no one would reap any special benefit from them, least of all, March.
"I can wait well enough another year, perhaps two," she said; "and, meanwhile, we 'll be earning more. But you, March, ought to be in the academy at Barton's this very minute."