“Didn’t the girls laugh at the picture?” asked Jo, who relished the scrape.

“Laugh? Not one! They sat as still as mice; and Susie cried quarts, I know she did. I didn’t envy her then; for I felt that millions of carnelian rings wouldn’t have made me happy, after that. I never, never should have got over such a agonizing mortification.” And Amy went on with her work, in the proud consciousness of virtue, and the successful utterance of two long words in a breath.