“Don’t lecture any more, there’s
a good soul! I have enough all through the week,
and like to enjoy myself when I come home. I’ll
get myself up regardless of expense tomorrow and be
a satisfaction to my friends.”
“I’ll leave you in peace if you’ll
only let your hair grow. I’m not aristocratic,
but I do object to being seen with a person who looks
like a young prize fighter,” observed Jo severely.
“This unassuming style promotes study, that’s
why we adopt it,” returned Laurie, who certainly
could not be accused of vanity, having voluntarily
sacrificed a handsome curly crop to the demand for
quarter-inch-long stubble.
“By the way, Jo, I think that little Parker
is really getting desperate about Amy. He talks
of her constantly, writes poetry, and moons about
in a most suspicious manner. He’d better
nip his little passion in the bud, hadn’t he?”
added Laurie, in a confidential, elder brotherly tone,
after a minute’s silence.
“Of course he had. We don’t want
any more marrying in this family for years to come.
Mercy on us, what are the children thinking of?”
and Jo looked as much scandalized as if Amy and little
Parker were not yet in their teens.
“It’s a fast age, and I don’t know
what we are coming to, ma’am. You are a
mere infant, but you’ll go next, Jo, and we’ll
be left lamenting,” said Laurie, shaking his
head over the degeneracy of the times.
“Don’t be alarmed. I’m not
one of the agreeable sort. Nobody will want
me, and it’s a mercy, for there should always
be one old maid in a family.”
“You won’t give anyone a chance,”
said Laurie, with a sidelong glance and a little more
color than before in his sunburned face. “You
won’t show the soft side of your character, and
if a fellow gets a peep at it by accident and can’t
help showing that he likes it, you treat him as Mrs.
Gummidge did her sweetheart, throw cold water over
him, and get so thorny no one dares touch or look at
you.”
“I don’t like that sort of thing.
I’m too busy to be worried with nonsense, and
I think it’s dreadful to break up families so.
Now don’t say any more about it. Meg’s
wedding has turned all our heads, and we talk of nothing
but lovers and such absurdities. I don’t
wish to get cross, so let’s change the subject;”
and Jo looked quite ready to fling cold water on
the slightest provocation.
Whatever his feelings might have been, Laurie found
a vent for them in a long low whistle and the fearful
prediction as they parted at the gate, “Mark
my words, Jo, you’ll go next.”
THE FIRST WEDDING
