Well, don’t make a porcupine of yourself, it isn’t becoming.
Just now it’s the fashion to be hideous; to make your head look like a scrubbing brush, wear a strait-jacket, orange gloves, and clumping, square-toed boots. If it was cheap ugliness, I’d say nothing; but it costs as much as the other, and I don’t get any satisfaction out of it.
Jo’s voice was full of tender reproach, and her heart ached to think of the solitary struggle that must have gone on while Beth learned to say goodbye to health, love, and life, and take up her cross so cheerfully.
Criticism is the best test of such work, for it will show her both unsuspected merits and faults, and help her to do better next time. We are too partial; but the praise and blame of outsiders will prove useful...
The first of June! The Kings are off to the seashore tomorrow, and I’m free. Three months’ vacation – how I shall enjoy it!” exclaimed Meg, coming home one warm day to find Jo laid upon the sofa in an unusual state of exhaustion, while Beth took off her dusty boots, and Amy made lemonade for the refreshment of the whole party.
I hate to think I’ve got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China Aster! It’s bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy’s games and work and manners! I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy. And it’s worse than ever now, for I’m dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home and knit, like a poky old woman!
It must be recorded of Amy that she deliberately prinked that night. Time and absence had done its work on both the young people. She had seen her old friend in a new light, not as ‘our boy’, but as a handsome and agreeable man, and she was conscious of a very natural desire to find favor in his sight. Amy knew her good points, and made the most of them with the taste and skill which is a fortune to a poor and pretty woman.
Hither, hither, from thy home, Airy sprite, I bid thee come! Born of roses, fed on dew, Charms and potions canst thou brew? Bring me here, with elfin speed, The fragrant philter which I need. Make it sweet and swift and strong, Spirit, answer now my song!
A good fit of illness proves the value of health; real danger tries one’s mettle; and self-service Sweetner character.
My little girl, I would face a dozen storms far worse than this to keep your soul as stainless as snow; for it is the small temptations which undermine integrity, unless we watch and pray, and never think them too trivial to be resisted.
It was Tilly’s turn to speak, and she startled them with her words, “I’m very glad tomorrow is Christmas, even though I shan’t have any presents at all.” These sentiments were spoken as the three little girls trudged home from school, and Tilly’s words struck a cord of pity in the others. Kate and Bessy wondered how she could speak so cheerfully and be so happy when she was too poor to receive even the smallest of gifts on Christmas Day.
Laurie liked her better for it, and found himself both admiring and respecting the brave patience that made the most of opportunity, and the cheerful spirit that covered poverty with flowers.
Oh, if someone would only come and take me away! I’m so tired of living here, and I don’t think I can bear it much longer. Poor Patty might well wish for a change; she had been in the orphanage ever since she could remember. And though everyone was very kind to her, she was heartily tired of the place and longed to find a home.
Gnarled olive trees covered the hills with their dusky foliage, fruit hung golden in the orchard, and great scarlet anemones fringed the roadside, while beyond green slopes and craggy heights, the Maritime Alps rose sharp and white against the blue Italian sky.
She knew she looked well, she loved to dance, she felt that her foot was on the native heath in a ball-room, and enjoyed the delightful sense of power which comes when young girls first discover the new and lovely kingdom they are born to rule by virtue of beauty, youth, and womanhood.
Queens of society can’t get on without money, so you mean to make a good match, and start in that way? Quite right and proper, as the world goes, but it sounds odd from the lips of one of your mother’s girls.
As they gathered about the table, Mrs. March said, with a particularly happy face, “I’ve got a treat for you after supper.
No one guessed what a world of hopes and thoughts and feelings lay hidden beneath that blue pinafore, what dreams this solitary child enjoyed, or what a hungry, aspiring young soul lived in her crooked little body.
She is one of the timid, innocent, humble, creatures who can’t push their way, and so get put aside and forgotten, She has tried all sorts of poorly paid work, couldn’t live on it decently, got discouraged, sick, frightened, and could see no refuge from the big, bad world but to get out of it while she wasn’t afraid to die. A very old story, my dear, new and dreadful as it seems to you.
Genius. Don’t you wish you could give it to me, Laurie?” And she slyly smiled in his disappointed face.