I long for you tonight, Marmee. Meg is so cross with me, and only you understand how I struggle to be good and pleasant and womanly when it ain’t easy and it don’t come natural. Letters are very well, but if you were here at home we could sit as we do on our quiet restful nights together by the fire, with you in the easy chair and me lying on the dear old shabby sofa with my head on Beth’s little red pillow, and I could talk as I only can to you, and tell you all my troubles and see your dear smile of encouragement. I read your letters to console me but I’d far sooner have your smile to lift my spirits and your hand to stroke my brow. Ah, well, if I am down tonight it is only of my own doing, as Meg would no doubt remind me.

Write soon, Marmee dear, for it is so comforting to get your letters, and just now I’m in sorest need of my Marmee’s comfort.

With love and a heavy heart from your black sheep daughter,

Jo.

Lulu sat with the letter for a long time, wondering what had happened afterwards in the little house in the town outside Boston all those years ago. Had Marmee laughed at the incident, like the young man called Laurie had, or had she lectured like Meg? Had the dandified Mr. Tudor ever forgiven Jo, and what had the other people at the dance thought of it all? And Jo herself—had she really found it so amusing that the young men of the town had so plainly preferred her sister, or were her jokes a cover for an aching heart? But Jo had found love in the end, Lulu reminded herself quickly. Awkward as she had been as a girl, she had met a German professor, somehow or somewhere, and she had fallen in love and married him, and Mom had always said how happily married they were. Mom had also said, quite specifically this very afternoon, that the family had adored her. That was the word she had used. They had adored her.

The afternoon was almost over and Fee long finished with her puzzle when Lulu appeared again at the kitchen door.

“Is there any tea left?” she asked.

“I’ll just check,” said Fee, who had brewed a second pot in anticipation.

3

Concord, september 1866.

Beth, dearie,

How you would have delighted in the theatricals that we held last night. The Grandee’s Revenge played to tumultuous applause, with Mr. Theodore Laurence most ably taking the part of Don Pedro the Grandee; Miss Amy March, happily restored to health after a fierce battle with the rheum, appearing as Rosarita, his beloved Lady in Blue; Miss Josephine March, resplendent in the russet boots, as the wicked Don Felipe; and featuring, as a particular cause of excitation from one and all, no less a luminary than that most celebrated of all actresses, Mrs. John Brooke herself, tempted from her retirement into domestic bliss for one final appearance upon the theatrical boards in honor of Cousin Flo’s birthday, to play the part of the Gypsy Queen.