Jo said this with such a droll imitation of May Chester’s gushing style that Amy got out of the room as rapidly as possible, feeling a strong desire to laugh and cry at the same time.

“Didn’t I do well?” asked Jo, with a satisfied air as they walked away.

“Nothing could have been worse,” was Amy’s crushing reply.  “What possessed you to tell those stories about my saddle, and the hats and boots, and all the rest of it?”

“Why, it’s funny, and amuses people.  They know we are poor, so it’s no use pretending that we have grooms, buy three or four hats a season, and have things as easy and fine as they do.”

“You needn’t go and tell them all our little shifts, and expose our poverty in that perfectly unnecessary way.  You haven’t a bit of proper pride, and never will learn when to hold your tongue and when to speak,” said Amy despairingly.

Poor Jo looked abashed, and silently chafed the end of her nose with the stiff handkerchief, as if performing a penance for her misdemeanors.

“How shall I behave here?” she asked, as they approached the third mansion.

“Just as you please.  I wash my hands of you,” was Amy’s short answer.

“Then I’ll enjoy myself.  The boys are at home, and we’ll have a comfortable time.  Goodness knows I need a little change, for elegance has a bad effect upon my constitution,” returned Jo gruffly, being disturbed by her failure to suit.

An enthusiastic welcome from three big boys and several pretty children speedily soothed her ruffled feelings, and leaving Amy to entertain the hostess and Mr. Tudor, who happened to be calling likewise, Jo devoted herself to the young folks and found the change refreshing.  She listened to college stories with deep interest, caressed pointers and poodles without a murmur, agreed heartily that “Tom Brown was a brick,” regardless of the improper form of praise, and when one lad proposed a visit to his turtle tank, she went with an alacrity which caused Mamma to smile upon her, as that motherly lady settled the cap which was left in a ruinous condition by filial hugs, bearlike but affectionate, and dearer to her than the most faultless coiffure from the hands of an inspired Frenchwoman.

Leaving her sister to her own devices, Amy proceeded to enjoy herself to her heart’s content.  Mr. Tudor’s uncle had married an English lady who was third cousin to a living lord, and Amy regarded the whole family with great respect, for in spite of her American birth and breeding, she possessed that reverence for titles which haunts the best of us—­that unacknowledged loyalty to the early faith in kings which set the most democratic nation under the sun in ferment at the coming of a royal yellow-haired laddie, some years ago, and which still has something to do with the love the young country bears the old, like that of a big son for an imperious little mother, who held him while she could, and let him go with a