“Oh, very!  His hair is auburn, not red, and he was very polite, and I had a delicious redowa with him.”

“He looked like a grasshopper in a fit when he did the new step.  Laurie and I couldn’t help laughing.  Did you hear us?”

“No, but it was very rude.  What were you about all that time, hidden away there?”

Jo told her adventures, and by the time she had finished they were at home.  With many thanks, they said good night and crept in, hoping to disturb no one, but the instant their door creaked, two little nightcaps bobbed up, and two sleepy but eager voices cried out . . .

“Tell about the party!  Tell about the party!”

With what Meg called ‘a great want of manners’ Jo had saved some bonbons for the little girls, and they soon subsided, after hearing the most thrilling events of the evening.

“I declare, it really seems like being a fine young lady, to come home from the party in a carriage and sit in my dressing gown with a maid to wait on me,” said Meg, as Jo bound up her foot with arnica and brushed her hair.

“I don’t believe fine young ladies enjoy themselves a bit more than we do, in spite of our burned hair, old gowns, one glove apiece and tight slippers that sprain our ankles when we are silly enough to wear them.”  And I think Jo was quite right.

CHAPTER FOUR

BURDENS

“Oh, dear, how hard it does seem to take up our packs and go on,” sighed Meg the morning after the party, for now the holidays were over, the week of merrymaking did not fit her for going on easily with the task she never liked.

“I wish it was Christmas or New Year’s all the time.  Wouldn’t it be fun?” answered Jo, yawning dismally.

“We shouldn’t enjoy ourselves half so much as we do now.  But it does seem so nice to have little suppers and bouquets, and go to parties, and drive home, and read and rest, and not work.  It’s like other people, you know, and I always envy girls who do such things, I’m so fond of luxury,” said Meg, trying to decide which of two shabby gowns was the least shabby.

“Well, we can’t have it, so don’t let us grumble but shoulder our bundles and trudge along as cheerfully as Marmee does.  I’m sure Aunt March is a regular Old Man of the Sea to me, but I suppose when I’ve learned to carry her without complaining, she will tumble off, or get so light that I shan’t mind her.”

This idea tickled Jo’s fancy and put her in good spirits, but Meg didn’t brighten, for her burden, consisting of four spoiled children, seemed heavier than ever.  She had not heart enough even to make herself pretty as usual by putting on a blue neck ribbon and dressing her hair in the most becoming way.

“Where’s the use of looking nice, when no one sees me but those cross midgets, and no one cares whether I’m pretty or not?” she muttered, shutting her drawer with a jerk.  “I shall have to toil and moil all my days, with only little bits of fun now and then, and get old and ugly and sour, because I’m poor and can’t enjoy my life as other girls do.  It’s a shame!”