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Little Women: Brooke

Now John Brooke, the tutor of Laurie, was a secret admirer of pretty Meg. Discovering this, the mischievous boy wrote Meg a passionate love-letter, purporting to be from Brooke. This prank caused a terrible upset in both houses, but later on Brooke put the momentous question, and Meg meekly whispered, "Yes, John," and hid her face on his waistcoat. Jo, blundering in, was transfixed with astonishment and dismay, and exclaimed, "Oh, do somebody come quick! John Brooke is acting dreadfully, and Meg likes it!" At Christmas, Father March came home from the war, and great celebration was made. The neighbors from the Laurence house were invited, and there never was such a Christmas dinner as they had that day!

Later came the first break in their restored home circle. The Dovecote was the name of the little brown house that John Brooke had prepared for his bride, and it was a tiny affair with a lawn in front about as big as a pocket handkerchief! The wedding, beneath the June roses, was a simple, homey one, and the bridal journey was only the walk from the March home to the dear little new house. "I'm too happy to care what any one says--I'm going to have my wedding just as I want it!" Meg had declared; and so, leaning on her husband's arm, her hands full of flowers, she went away, saying: "Thank you all for my happy wedding-day. Good-by, good-by!"

Jo developed into a writer of sensational stories. This, however, was because she found a profitable market for such work and she wanted the money for herself and the others. For little Beth was ailing, and a summer stay at the seashore might, they all hoped, bring back the roses to her cheeks. But it didn't, and after a time the dark days came when gentle Beth, like a tired but trustful child, clung to the hands that had led her all through life, as her father and mother guided her tenderly through the Valley of the Shadow and gave her up to God.

Then came a day when Laurie was invited to the Dovecote to see Meg's new baby. Jo appeared, a proud aunt, bearing a bundle on a pillow. "Shut your eyes and hold out your arms," she ordered, and Laurie, obeying, opened his eyes again, to see--two babies! "Twins, by Jupiter!" he cried; "take 'em, quick, somebody! I'm going to laugh, and I shall drop 'em!"

Laurie had loved Jo for years, but Jo, though truly sorry, couldn't respond. As she said, "It's impossible for people to make themselves love other people if they don't!" And so, after a time, Laurie decided that Amy was the only woman in the world who could fill Jo's place and make him happy. And the two were very happy together, Amy taking great pride in her handsome husband. "Don't laugh," she said to him, "but your nose is such a comfort to me!" and she caressed the well-cut feature with artistic satisfaction. Jo found her fate in an elderly professor, wise and kind, but too poor to think of marriage. For a year the pair worked and waited and hoped and loved, and then Aunt March died and left Jo her fine old country place. Here Jo and her professor set up their home, and established a boys' school which became a great success. Jo lived a very happy life, and, as the years went on, two little lads of her own came to increase her happiness. Amy, too, had a dear child named Beth, but she was a frail little creature and the dread of losing her was the shadow over Amy's sunshine.

But the little women and all their dear ones formed a happy, united family, of whom Jo truly wrote:

Lives whose brave music long shall ring Like a spirit-stirring strain.