“I’m not the scatterbrain I was.  You may trust me.  I’m sober and sensible enough for anyone’s confidante now.”

“So you are, my dear, and I should have made you mine, only I fancied it might pain you to learn that your Teddy loved someone else.”

“Now, Mother, did you really think I could be so silly and selfish, after I’d refused his love, when it was freshest, if not best?”

“I knew you were sincere then, Jo, but lately I have thought that if he came back, and asked again, you might perhaps, feel like giving another answer.  Forgive me, dear, I can’t help seeing that you are very lonely, and sometimes there is a hungry look in your eyes that goes to my heart.  So I fancied that your boy might fill the empty place if he tried now.”

“No, Mother, it is better as it is, and I’m glad Amy has learned to love him.  But you are right in one thing.  I am lonely, and perhaps if Teddy had tried again, I might have said ‘Yes’, not because I love him any more, but because I care more to be loved than when he went away.”

“I’m glad of that, Jo, for it shows that you are getting on.  There are plenty to love you, so try to be satisfied with Father and Mother, sisters and brothers, friends and babies, till the best lover of all comes to give you your reward.”

“Mothers are the best lovers in the world, but I don’t mind whispering to Marmee that I’d like to try all kinds.  It’s very curious, but the more I try to satisfy myself with all sorts of natural affections, the more I seem to want.  I’d no idea hearts could take in so many.  Mine is so elastic, it never seems full now, and I used to be quite contented with my family.  I don’t understand it.”

“I do,” and Mrs. March smiled her wise smile, as Jo turned back the leaves to read what Amy said of Laurie.

“It is so beautiful to be loved as Laurie loves me.  He isn’t sentimental, doesn’t say much about it, but I see and feel it in all he says and does, and it makes me so happy and so humble that I don’t seem to be the same girl I was.  I never knew how good and generous and tender he was till now, for he lets me read his heart, and I find it full of noble impulses and hopes and purposes, and am so proud to know it’s mine.  He says he feels as if he ’could make a prosperous voyage now with me aboard as mate, and lots of love for ballast’.  I pray he may, and try to be all he believes me, for I love my gallant captain with all my heart and soul and might, and never will desert him, while God lets us be together.  Oh, Mother, I never knew how much like heaven this world could be, when two people love and live for one another!”

“And that’s our cool, reserved, and worldly Amy!  Truly, love does work miracles.  How very, very happy they must be!” and Jo laid the rustling sheets together with a careful hand, as one might shut the covers of a lovely romance, which holds the reader fast till the end comes, and he finds himself alone in the workaday world again.