and take up her cross so cheerfully.
“Perhaps it was wrong, but I tried to do right; I wasn’t sure, no one said anything, and I hoped I was mistaken. It would have been selfish to frighten you all when Marmee was so anxious about Meg, and Amy away, and you so happy with Laurie—at least, I thought so then.”
“And I thought that you loved him, Beth, and I went away because I couldn’t,” cried Jo, glad to say all the truth.
Beth looked so amazed at the idea that Jo smiled in spite of her pain, and added softly—
“Then you didn’t, deary? I was afraid it was so, and imagined your poor little heart full of love-lornity all that while.”
“Why, Jo, how could I, when he was so fond of you?” asked Beth, as innocently as a child. “I do love him dearly; he is so good to me, how can I help it? But he never could be anything to me but my brother. I hope he truly will be, sometime.”