“My dear, nothing can comfort me like this,” he answered, with a falter in his voice, and both arms round her, as if he too, needed help, and did not fear to ask for it.

Then, sitting in Beth’s little chair close beside him, Jo told her troubles, the resentful sorrow for her loss, the fruitless efforts that discouraged her, the want of faith that made life look so dark, and all the sad bewilderment which we call despair.  She gave him entire confidence, he gave her the help she needed, and both found consolation in the act.  For the time had come when they could talk together not only as father and daughter, but as man and woman, able and glad to serve each other with mutual sympathy as well as mutual love.  Happy, thoughtful times there in the old study which Jo called ‘the church of one member’, and from which she came with fresh courage, recovered cheerfulness, and a more submissive spirit.  For the parents who had taught one child to meet death without fear, were trying now to teach another to accept life without despondency or distrust, and to use its beautiful opportunities with gratitude and power.

Other helps had Jo—­humble, wholesome duties and delights that would not be denied their part in serving her, and which she slowly learned to see and value.  Brooms and dishcloths never could be as distasteful as they once had been, for Beth had presided over both, and something of her housewifely spirit seemed to linger around the little mop and the old brush, never thrown away.  As she used them, Jo found herself humming the songs Beth used to hum, imitating Beth’s orderly ways, and giving the little touches here and there that kept everything fresh and cozy, which was the first step toward making home happy, though she didn’t know it till Hannah said with an approving squeeze of the hand . . .

“You thoughtful creeter, you’re determined we shan’t miss that dear lamb ef you can help it.  We don’t say much, but we see it, and the Lord will bless you for’t, see ef He don’t.”

As they sat sewing together, Jo discovered how much improved her sister Meg was, how well she could talk, how much she knew about good, womanly impulses, thoughts, and feelings, how happy she was in husband and children, and how much they were all doing for each other.

“Marriage is an excellent thing, after all.  I wonder if I should blossom out half as well as you have, if I tried it?, always ’perwisin’ I could,” said Jo, as she constructed a kite for Demi in the topsy-turvy nursery.

“It’s just what you need to bring out the tender womanly half of your nature, Jo.  You are like a chestnut burr, prickly outside, but silky-soft within, and a sweet kernal, if one can only get at it.  Love will make you show your heart one day, and then the rough burr will fall off.”

“Frost opens chestnut burrs, ma’am, and it takes a good shake to bring them down.  Boys go nutting, and I don’t care to be bagged by them,” returned Jo, pasting away at the kite which no wind that blows would ever carry up, for Daisy had tied herself on as a bob.