ance with illness that he rebelled against the doctor's orders
to keep quiet; and it took all Mrs Jo's authority and the girls'
ingenuity to keep him from leaving his sofa long before strained back
and wounded head were well. Daisy cooked for him; Nan attended to his
medicines; Josie read aloud to while away the long hours of inaction
that hung so heavily on his hands; while Bess brought all her
pictures and casts to amuse him, and, at his special desire, set up a
modelling-stand in his parlour and began to mould the buffalo head he
gave her. Those afternoons seemed the pleasantest part of his day; and
Mrs Jo, busy in her study close by, could see the friendly trio and
enjoy the pretty pictures they made. The girls were much flattered
by the success of their efforts, and exerted themselves to be very
entertaining, consulting Dan's moods with the feminine tact most women
creatures learn before they are out of pinafores. When he was gay, the
room rang with laughter; when gloomy, they read or worked in respectful
silence till their sweet patience cheered him up again; and when in pain
they hovered over him like 'a couple of angels', as he said. He often
called Josie 'little mother', but Bess was always 'Princess'; and his
manner to the two cousins was quite different. Josie sometimes fretted
him with her fussy ways, the long plays she liked to read, and the
maternal scoldings she administered when he broke the rules; for having
a lord of creation in her power was so delightful to her that she would
have ruled him with a rod of iron if he had submitted. To Bess, in her
gentler ministrations, he never showed either impatience or weariness,
but obeyed her least word, exerted himself to seem well in her presence,
and took such interest in her work that he lay looking at her with
unwearied eyes; while Josie read to him in her best style unheeded.

Mrs Jo observed this, and called them 'Una and the Lion', which suited
them very well, though the lion's mane was shorn, and Una never tried to
bridle him. The elder ladies did their part in providing delicacies and
supplying all his wants; but Mrs Meg was busy at home, Mrs Amy preparing
for the trip to Europe in the spring, and Mrs Jo hovering on the brink
of a 'vortex'--for the forthcoming book had been sadly delayed by
the late domestic events. As she sat at her desk, settling papers or
meditatively nibbling her pen while waiting for the divine afflatus to
descend upon her, she ofte