Some time later, when I myself descended the stairs to rejoin the company, I was transfixed by the sight of Master Demi Brooke sitting at his ease upon the lap of the one he now calls his “fluffy aunt,” and showering her with crumbs of sugar cake as he exposited to her most carefully the means by which “cattle-pillars” turn into “buttle-flies.” He is to visit her at home next week to be shown Uncle March’s collection of rare insects. He is to stay with her when she goes to Plumfield next month. And he has assured her, to such of her relief as you may imagine, that she is not to bother herself unduly about Daisy, for, as he explained to her, girls are the oddest creatures, he and Parpar have agreed that they can never predict how Marmar will be from one day to the next (this causing shot-up eyebrows from Meg and a sudden fascination from John in the condition of his fingernails), but if she’ll leave it to him to have a word with the little woman, he’s confident that she’ll “come wound.” Who—except, I now more than suspect, for my most sly puss of a sister in France—would have ever thought we’d see the day?
All is well here otherwise. Marmee’s toothache is better; she did go to the dentist at last, and says she is glad she did, though she had dreaded it so. Father’s shipment of books has arrived, which pleases both him and John, who still loves to read as dearly as he ever did, and can happily lose himself in a book through the noisiest of household din. And I saw little Mr. Parker in town the other day and asked him if he minded very much about you and Teddy; for he did care for you a great deal, for all that we laughed at him for it, and it ain’t pleasant to be passed over, as I know too well by now—might tell you about that one day when you’re not too busy billing and cooing with your lover. Mr. Parker looked sober for a moment, but then said that he had always known he would never merit a goddess such as yourself, and that it was a consolation to know that the man who had had the immense good fortune to win you was so capital a fellow as Teddy. Wasn’t that sweet?
I will bid you—not adieu, which is how you’ve taken to signing your own letters, Mademoiselle, but a plain American good-bye, and leave you to go back to your “lovering” with the capital fellow, to whom I send my best respects. And if ever I suggest to you again, Amy, that miracles do not occur in this world of ours, I give you full liberty to silence me with the two simple words, “fluffy aunt.”
Your loving sister,
Jo.
It was a bleak morning in early December, and Lulu was walking up Hampstead High Street under a darkly swollen rain cloud, wondering how she was going to be able to buy Christmas presents. She had been walking dogs for three months now; it was part-time work at best, and in spite of her frugality, her severance pay from Mr. Goncharoff was all but used up. Charlie had forbidden her to think about paying rent until she had found a more lucrative occupation; and Fee had adopted a habit of mysteriously finding herself on Sundays with more food than she could possibly eat and begging Lulu to take it home with her and off her hands. Even so, Lulu knew that she could not go on like this—she must find a job, if only for the sake of buying Christmas presents. Lulu was not a young woman who cared a great deal for material things: but Christmas would not be Christmas, she thought, if she could not give presents.