“Watch and pray, dear, never get tired of trying, and never think it is impossible to conquer your fault,” said Mrs. March, drawing the blowzy head to her shoulder and kissing the wet cheek so tenderly that Jo cried even harder.

“You don’t know, you can’t guess how bad it is!  It seems as if I could do anything when I’m in a passion.  I get so savage, I could hurt anyone and enjoy it.  I’m afraid I shall do something dreadful some day, and spoil my life, and make everybody hate me.  Oh, Mother, help me, do help me!”

“I will, my child, I will.  Don’t cry so bitterly, but remember this day, and resolve with all your soul that you will never know another like it.  Jo, dear, we all have our temptations, some far greater than yours, and it often takes us all our lives to conquer them.  You think your temper is the worst in the world, but mine used to be just like it.”

“Yours, Mother?  Why, you are never angry!” And for the moment Jo forgot remorse in surprise.

“I’ve been trying to cure it for forty years, and have only succeeded in controlling it.  I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I have learned not to show it, and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so.”

The patience and the humility of the face she loved so well was a better lesson to Jo than the wisest lecture, the sharpest reproof.  She felt comforted at once by the sympathy and confidence given her.  The knowledge that her mother had a fault like hers, and tried to mend it, made her own easier to bear and strengthened her resolution to cure it, though forty years seemed rather a long time to watch and pray to a girl of fifteen.

“Mother, are you angry when you fold your lips tight together and go out of the room sometimes, when Aunt March scolds or people worry you?” asked Jo, feeling nearer and dearer to her mother than ever before.

“Yes, I’ve learned to check the hasty words that rise to my lips, and when I feel that they mean to break out against my will, I just go away for a minute, and give myself a little shake for being so weak and wicked,” answered Mrs. March with a sigh and a smile, as she smoothed and fastened up Jo’s disheveled hair.

“How did you learn to keep still?  That is what troubles me, for the sharp words fly out before I know what I’m about, and the more I say the worse I get, till it’s a pleasure to hurt people’s feelings and say dreadful things.  Tell me how you do it, Marmee dear.”

“My good mother used to help me . . .”

“As you do us . . .” interrupted Jo, with a grateful kiss.

“But I lost her when I was a little older than you are, and for years had to struggle on alone, for I was too proud to confess my weakness to anyone else.  I had a hard time, Jo, and shed a good many bitter tears over my failures, for in spite of my efforts I never seemed to get on.  Then your father came, and I was so happy that I found it easy to be good.  But by-and-by, when I had four little daughters round me and we were poor, then the old trouble began again, for I am not patient by nature, and it tried me very much to see my children wanting anything.”