Do you remember old Miss Crocker, who worried us so when we were girls with her fussing and prying and gossiping? Well, she’d left us alone for a while, mercifully, having decided that a house holding nothing but a quiet old couple and their spinster daughter must provide so little material for gossip that they weren’t worth the trouble of a visit. But lo and behold, no sooner do Amy and Teddy arrive back home from their travels, than there she is at the front porch, right around dinnertime, eager as can be to see all that is going on and report her findings all around the town. Of course, we couldn’t but invite her in, so in she comes, yellow and sharp-nosed as ever, and starts to cast her eyes around.

It happened we had another guest that day. Do you remember Professor Bhaer, the German teacher I met at my lodgings in New York? It happens that he’s in town, for he has business in the city that is keeping him here for a few days; and, since he chanced to be passing our door on his way home from his business to his lodgings, he had stopped to pay a call, and you know how hospitable Marmee is—she wouldn’t have it but that he’d agree to stay to dine.

Down we sit, Mother and Father, and Amy and Laurie and old Mr. Laurence, for they are dining with us until their own house is settled, and the Professor and Miss Crocker, the latter all the time casting her eyes over Amy’s Parisian clothes and jewels, while Amy’s trying to hide behind Laurie, for she never could abide the gossiping old creature, and certainly don’t want to have to deal with her in her first week back home. Hannah brings the veal, we all fall to talking, and of course we tell the tale of that dreadful dinner I served Miss Crocker all those years ago, with the terrible lobster and the strawberries covered with salt not sugar—mercy me, how long ago that seems. Now, Laurie’s in his glory here, for he’s had many years to perfect the story, and the justice he does by it now is nothing short of handsome.

Professor Bhaer, who’s the only one of the company who hasn’t heard it before, is reveling in it, which is a delight to witness, for it is a good joke, when told at this distance, and the Professor has a splendidly hearty Teutonic laugh, which is truly a tonic to the ears. He listens, and laughs, and then when the story is done, he turns to me—for the Germans are a courteous race and can none of them abide to have a person feel slighted in their presence, and especially not a man so good-hearted as the Professor—bows gravely to me, and adds soberly, “I hope that Mees Marsch does not think that we make fun of her, for I am sure that on that day she worked hard and wished only to make a wholesome dinner for all.”