“I can hold them crumpled up in my hand, so no one will know how stained they are.  That’s all I can do.  No!  I’ll tell you how we can manage, each wear one good one and carry a bad one.  Don’t you see?”

“Your hands are bigger than mine, and you will stretch my glove dreadfully,” began Meg, whose gloves were a tender point with her.

“Then I’ll go without.  I don’t care what people say!” cried Jo, taking up her book.

“You may have it, you may!  Only don’t stain it, and do behave nicely.  Don’t put your hands behind you, or stare, or say ‘Christopher Columbus!’ will you?”

“Don’t worry about me.  I’ll be as prim as I can and not get into any scrapes, if I can help it.  Now go and answer your note, and let me finish this splendid story.”

So Meg went away to ‘accept with thanks’, look over her dress, and sing blithely as she did up her one real lace frill, while Jo finished her story, her four apples, and had a game of romps with Scrabble.

On New Year’s Eve the parlor was deserted, for the two younger girls played dressing maids and the two elder were absorbed in the all-important business of ‘getting ready for the party’.  Simple as the toilets were, there was a great deal of running up and down, laughing and talking, and at one time a strong smell of burned hair pervaded the house.  Meg wanted a few curls about her face, and Jo undertook to pinch the papered locks with a pair of hot tongs.

“Ought they to smoke like that?” asked Beth from her perch on the bed.

“It’s the dampness drying,” replied Jo.

“What a queer smell!  It’s like burned feathers,” observed Amy, smoothing her own pretty curls with a superior air.

“There, now I’ll take off the papers and you’ll see a cloud of little ringlets,” said Jo, putting down the tongs.

She did take off the papers, but no cloud of ringlets appeared, for the hair came with the papers, and the horrified hairdresser laid a row of little scorched bundles on the bureau before her victim.

“Oh, oh, oh!  What have you done?  I’m spoiled!  I can’t go!  My hair, oh, my hair!” wailed Meg, looking with despair at the uneven frizzle on her forehead.

“Just my luck!  You shouldn’t have asked me to do it.  I always spoil everything.  I’m so sorry, but the tongs were too hot, and so I’ve made a mess,” groaned poor Jo, regarding the little black pancakes with tears of regret.

“It isn’t spoiled.  Just frizzle it, and tie your ribbon so the ends come on your forehead a bit, and it will look like the last fashion.  I’ve seen many girls do it so,” said Amy consolingly.

“Serves me right for trying to be fine.  I wish I’d let my hair alone,” cried Meg petulantly.

“So do I, it was so smooth and pretty.  But it will soon grow out again,” said Beth, coming to kiss and comfort the shorn sheep.