Meg was Amy’s confidant and monitor, and, by some strange attraction of opposites, Jo was gentle Beth’s. To Jo alone did the shy child tell her thoughts; and over her big, harum-scarum sister, Beth unconsciously exercised more influence than anyone in the family. The two older girls were a great deal to one another, but each took one of the younger into her keeping, and watched over her in her own way; “playing mother” they called it, and put their sisters in the places of discarded dolls, with the maternal instinct of little women.
“Has anybody got anything to tell? It’s been such a dismal day I’m really dying for some amusement,” said Meg, as they sat sewing together that evening.
“I had a queer time with aunt today, and, as I got the best of it, I’ll tell you about it,” began Jo, who dearly loved to tell stories. “I was reading that everlasting Belsham, and droning away as I always do, for aunt soon drops off, and then I take out some nice book, and read like fury till she wakes up. I actually made myself sleepy; and, before she began to nod, I gave such a gape that she asked me what I meant by opening my mouth wide enough to take the whole book in at once.
“ ‘I wish I could, and be done with it,’ said I, trying not to be saucy.
“Then she gave me a long lecture on my sins, and told me to sit and think them over while she just ‘lost’ herself for a moment. She never finds herself very soon; so the minute her cap began to bob, like a top-heavy dahlia, I whipped the Vicar of Wakefield out of my pocket, and read away, with one eye on him, and one on aunt. I’d just got to where they all tumbled into the water, when I forgot, and laughed out loud. Aunt woke up; and, being more good-natured after her nap, told me to read a bit, and show what frivolous work I preferred to the worthy and instructive Belsham. I did my very best, and she liked it, though she only said—