Free Classics Mutilated by Jeff Conner Page A

baggage," she said briskly. "Mother sends her love and was glad if I could do anything for you. Meg wanted me to bring some of her blancmange. She makes it very nicely." 
    "That looks too pretty to eat," he said, smiling with pleasure as Jo uncovered the dish and showed the blancmange, surrounded by a garland of green leaves and the scarlet flowers of Amy's pet geranium. 
    "Tell the girl to put it away for your tea," said Jo. "It's so simple you can eat it and, being soft, it will slip down without hurting your sore throat. What a cozy room this is." 
    "It might be if it was kept nice, but the maids are so lazy, and I dare say I don't know how to make them mind." 
    "I'll straighten it up in two minutes, for it only needs to have the hearth brushed, and the things made straight on the mantelpiece, and the books put here, and the bottles there, and your sofa turned from the light, and the pillows plumped. Now then, you're fixed." 
    And so he was, for, as she talked, Jo had whisked about the room putting things into place which, when done, gave quite a different air to the room. She noticed a few objects and artifacts that struck her as unique, but she had the manners not to remark on them. One, a photograph of a lovely woman with long, black hair, seemed to be three-dimensional, to which Jo ascribed a trick of the eye. Laurie watched her in respectful silence, and when she beckoned him to his sofa, he sat down with a sigh of satisfaction. 
    "How kind you are," he said graciously. "Yes, that's exactly what it needed. Now, please take the big chair, and let me do something to amuse you." 
    "I came to amuse you," Jo said, habitually placing her gloved hands behind her back to hide the stains. "Shall I read aloud?" She looked affectionately toward some inviting books in a case nearby. Several titles, written on the spines, appeared to be in a language unfamiliar to her, perhaps Arabic or Hindoo, she thought.
    "Thank you, but I've read all those, and if you don't mind, I'd rather talk," answered Laurie. 
    "Not a bit. I'll talk all day if you'll only set me going. Beth used to say I never know when to stop." 
    "The pretty one is Meg, and the curly-haired one is Amy, but I don't believe I have met or seen your sister Beth."
    "Beth is—" began Jo, but she fell silent, not sure how to proceed until she ended with a feeble, "We speak very little of her." 
    Laurie colored up but said frankly, "Why, you see, I often hear you calling to one another, and when I'm alone upstairs, I can't help but look over at your house. You always seem to be having such grand times. I beg your pardon for being so rude, but sometimes you forget to pull the curtain at the window where the flowers are, and when the lamps are lighted, it's like looking at a living picture book to see you all gathered around with your mother. Her face looks so sweet behind the flowers. I can't help watching. I haven't got any mother, you know."
    "I'm so sorry," replied Jo. "I didn't know. Do you care to tell me what happened?"
    "She was from … Italy. When she died, my father, being unable to raise me on his own because his business concerns take him far and wide, sent me to Concord to live with my grandfather until I begin college."
    Laurie poked at the fire to hide a slight twitching of the upper lip and a certain moistness in his eyes that he could not control. 
    The solitary, yearning look in his eyes went straight to Jo's heart. She had been so simply taught that there was no nonsense in her head, and at fifteen she was as innocent and frank as any child. Laurie was ill and lonely, and she was grateful for how rich she truly was in home and true happiness. She gladly wished to share it with him. Her face was very friendly, and her sharp voice unusually gentle as she said—
    "We'll never draw that curtain any more, and I give you leave to look as much as you like. I just wish, though, instead of peeping, you'd come over and visit. Mother is so splendid. She'd do