But to-day no one noticed, and Cherry sat down in her mother's lap, and mumbled out her woe between sniffs.
"I can't help it if Budd does want her; I don't, Martie. Budd will play with her, and you'll kiss her just as you do us, and it won't be comfy any more."
"That does not sound like mother's Cherry Blossom," said Mrs. Blossom, smiling in spite of herself. "I think I'll tell you all why it comes to mother and father as a blessing."
Then Mrs. Blossom told them of the mortgage on the farm; how it had been made necessary, and what it meant, and how it was her duty to accept what had been sent to her as a means of paying it off.
Rose came over from the window. "Oh, why did n't you tell us before, Martie," she cried, sobbing outright this time, "and let us help you to earn something towards it during all this dreadful year? To think you have been bearing all this, and just going about the same, smiling and cheer—oh, dear! " Rose sat down on the hearth-rug at her mother's feet, and her sobs mingled with Cherry's sniffs.
March, who had listened thus far in silence, rose from the settle where he had flung himself in disgust, and, going over to his mother, stood straight and tall before her. His gray eyes flashed.
"I've been a fool, mother, not to see it all before this. You ought to have told me. I'm your eldest son, and come next after father in home things.'" And with this assertion he made a mighty resolve, then and there to put away
