This odd arrangement made Mrs. March smile; but she said gravely, “Jo, I confide in you, and don’t wish you to say anything to Meg yet. When John comes back, and I see them together, I can judge better of her feelings toward him.”

“She’ll see his in those handsome eyes that she talks about, and then it will be all up with her. She’s got such a soft heart, it will melt like butter in the sun if anyone looks sentimentally at her. She read the short reports he sent more than she did your letters, and pinched me when I spoke of it, and likes brown eyes, and doesn’t think John an ugly name, and she’ll go and fall in love, and there’s an end of peace and fun, and cosy times together. I see it all! they’ll go lovering around the house, and we shall have to dodge; Meg will be absorbed, and no good to me any more; Brooke will scratch up a fortune somehow, carry her off, and make a hole in the family; and I shall break my heart, and everything will be abominably uncomfortable. Oh, dear me! why weren’t we all boys, then there wouldn’t be any bother.”