“O Beth, he’s sent you—” began Amy, gesticulating with unseemly energy; but she got no further, for Jo quenched her by slamming down the window.
Beth hurried on in a flutter of suspense. At the door, her sisters seized and bore her to the parlor in a triumphal procession, all pointing, and all saying at once, “Look there! look there!” Beth did look, and turned pale with delight and surprise; for there stood a little cabinet-piano, with a letter lying on the glossy lid, directed, like a signboard, to “Miss Elizabeth March.”
“For me?” gasped Beth, holding on to Jo, and feeling as if she should tumble down, it was such an overwhelming thing altogether.
“Yes; all for you, my precious! Isn’t it splendid of him? Don’t you think he’s the dearest old man in the world? Here’s the key in the letter. We didn’t open it, but we are dying to know what he says,” cried Jo, hugging her sister, and offering the note.
“You read it! I can’t, I feel so queer! Oh, it is too lovely!” and Beth hid her face in Jo’s apron, quite upset by her present.
Jo opened the paper, and began to laugh, for the first words she saw were—
“ Miss March : “ Dear Madam —”
“How nice it sounds! I wish someone would write to me so!” said Amy, who thought the old-fashioned address very elegant.
“ ‘I have had many pairs of slippers in my life, but I never had any that suited me so well as yours,’ ” continued Jo. “ ‘Heart’s-ease is my favorite flower, and these will always remind me of the gentle giver. I like to pay my debts; so I know you will allow “the old gentleman” to send you