“I believe so,” answered Jo absently.
“If you happen to meet Mr. Bhaer, bring him home to tea. I quite long to see the dear man,” added Mrs. March.
Jo heard that , but made no answer, except to kiss her mother, and walk rapidly away, thinking with a glow of gratitude, in spite of her heartache—
“How good she is to me! What do girls do who haven’t any mothers to help them through their troubles?”
The dry-goods stores were not down among the countinghouses, banks, and wholesale warerooms, where gentlemen most do congregate; but Jo found herself in that part of the city before she did a single errand, loitering along as if waiting for someone, examining engineering instruments in one window and samples of wool in another with most unfeminine interest; tumbling over barrels, being half-smothered by descending bales, and hustled unceremoniously by busy men who looked as if they wondered “how the deuce she got there.” A drop of rain on her cheek recalled her thoughts from baffled hopes to ruined ribbons; for the drops continued to fall, and, being a woman as well as a lover, she felt that, though it was too late to save her heart, she might her bonnet. Now she remembered the little umbrella, which she had forgotten to take in her hurry to be off; but regret was unavailing, and nothing could be done but borrow one or submit to a drenching. She looked up at the lowering sky, down at the crimson bow already flecked with black, forward along the muddy street, then one long, lingering look behind, at a certain grimy warehouse, with “Hoffmann, Swartz, & Co. ” over the door, and said to herself, with a sternly reproachful air—
“It serves me right! What business had I to put on all my best things and come philandering down here, hoping to see the Professor? Jo, I’m ashamed of you! No, you shall not go there to borrow an umbrella, or