Then she sighed, and fell into a reverie from which she did not wake till the early twilight sent her down to take new observations, which only confirmed her suspicion.  Though Laurie flirted with Amy and joked with Jo, his manner to Beth had always been peculiarly kind and gentle, but so was everybody’s.  Therefore, no one thought of imagining that he cared more for her than for the others.  Indeed, a general impression had prevailed in the family of late that ‘our boy’ was getting fonder than ever of Jo, who, however, wouldn’t hear a word upon the subject and scolded violently if anyone dared to suggest it.  If they had known the various tender passages which had been nipped in the bud, they would have had the immense satisfaction of saying, “I told you so.”  But Jo hated ‘philandering’, and wouldn’t allow it, always having a joke or a smile ready at the least sign of impending danger.

When Laurie first went to college, he fell in love about once a month, but these small flames were as brief as ardent, did no damage, and much amused Jo, who took great interest in the alternations of hope, despair, and resignation, which were confided to her in their weekly conferences.  But there came a time when Laurie ceased to worship at many shrines, hinted darkly at one all-absorbing passion, and indulged occasionally in Byronic fits of gloom.  Then he avoided the tender subject altogether, wrote philosophical notes to Jo, turned studious, and gave out that he was going to ‘dig’, intending to graduate in a blaze of glory.  This suited the young lady better than twilight confidences, tender pressures of the hand, and eloquent glances of the eye, for with Jo, brain developed earlier than heart, and she preferred imaginary heroes to real ones, because when tired of them, the former could be shut up in the tin kitchen till called for, and the latter were less manageable.

Things were in this state when the grand discovery was made, and Jo watched Laurie that night as she had never done before.  If she had not got the new idea into her head, she would have seen nothing unusual in the fact that Beth was very quiet, and Laurie very kind to her.  But having given the rein to her lively fancy, it galloped away with her at a great pace, and common sense, being rather weakened by a long course of romance writing, did not come to the rescue.  As usual Beth lay on the sofa and Laurie sat in a low chair close by, amusing her with all sorts of gossip, for she depended on her weekly ‘spin’, and he never disappointed her.  But that evening Jo fancied that Beth’s eyes rested on the lively, dark face beside her with peculiar pleasure, and that she listened with intense interest to an account of some exciting cricket match, though the phrases, ‘caught off a tice’, ‘stumped off his ground’, and ‘the leg hit for three’, were as intelligible to her as Sanskrit.  She also fancied, having set her heart upon seeing it, that she saw a certain increase of gentleness in Laurie’s manner, that he dropped his voice now and then, laughed less than usual, was a little absent-minded, and settled the afghan over Beth’s feet with an assiduity that was really almost tender.