Peter did not appear again, but they heard him whistling in the workshop when they at last went upstairs to bed. Victoria went to the door and found him idly sharpening some tools, apparently giving little thought to the work. She wanted him to go to bed, but she knew that if she told him so, he would probably prolong his labors until far into the night. “We have been talking it all over, Peter,” said she gaily, “and we are going to think it out by ourselves over Sunday; and then Monday night we are going to tell each other how we want most to set about it,—making our fortunes, I mean. I am going to bed, for I can think better in the dark. I don’t suppose I shall go to sleep for ages. You needn’t hurry, but please put out the light in the back hall when you do come.” And the mere assurance that he need not hurry sent Peter to his room within five minutes. The next day was Sunday. When the Starr family awoke, the clouds were still thick, and the air was heavy with dampness; but by nine o’clock the sun was out, and at service time the day was clear. Peter and his four sisters went to church, as usual, and took their places in the family pew,—Peter at the end where his father had always sat, even on the very Sunday before he died. If the minds of the little group in black were occupied with other thoughts than those suggested by the service, they gave no outward sign of it. In the afternoon they all went to Sunday school as usual,—Honor and Katherine to teach, and the others to be taught; and after it was over Katherine and Victoria stayed to the afternoon service. Honor’s cold forced her to go home, and Peter and Sophy accompanied her. No one mentioned the subject in which they were all so vitally interested, until the next evening, when they were once more gathered about the parlor fire. “Now,” said Honor, drawing up a chair, and settling herself as if for the evening, “the time has at last come! I have scarcely been able to wait for night, for every one of you have looked as if you were bristling with ideas all day; but I thought I had better not begin the subject by asking for anything. Suppose we all take turns, beginning with the youngest, and each say what we think will be the quickest and the surest way of making our fortunes.” But Sophy felt shy at being called upon, and they all insisted that Honor should state her own views first, as she was the eldest. Her idea was to open a boarding-school during the winter, and to take boarders in summer. “When the place looks so lovely,” said she, “and there would be no necessity if we did that for us to alter our way of living, as regards the table. We should be obliged to have everything very nice if people were boarding here, and that would be such a comfort.” Katherine approved of a school, though perhaps not a boarding-school, and she thought it would be well for them to have a little time to themselves in summer.