nd the cheering
once begun, it was hard to stop it. Everybody's health was proposed,
from Mr. Laurence, who was considered their special patron, to the
astonished guinea pig, who had strayed from its proper sphere in search
of its young master. Demi, as the oldest grandchild, then presented
the queen of the day with various gifts, so numerous that they were
transported to the festive scene in a wheelbarrow. Funny presents,
some of them, but what would have been defects to other eyes were
ornaments to Grandma's--for the children's gifts were all their own.
Every stitch Daisy's patient little fingers had put into the
handkerchiefs she hemmed was better than embroidery to Mrs. March.
Demi's miracle of mechanical skill, though the cover wouldn't shut,
Rob's footstool had a wiggle in its uneven legs that she declared was
soothing, and no page of the costly book Amy's child gave her was so
fair as that on which appeared in tipsy capitals, the words--"To dear
Grandma, from her little Beth."

During the ceremony the boys had mysteriously disappeared, and when
Mrs. March had tried to thank her children, and broken down, while
Teddy wiped her eyes on his pinafore, the Professor suddenly began to
sing. Then, from above him, voice after voice took up the words, and
from tree to tree echoed the music of the unseen choir, as the boys
sang with all their hearts the little song that Jo had written, Laurie
set to music, and the Professor trained his lads to give with the best
effect. This was something altogether new, and it proved a grand
success, for Mrs. March couldn't get over her surprise, and insisted on
shaking hands with every one of the featherless birds, from tall Franz
and Emil to the little quadroon, who had the sweetest voice of all.

After this, the boys dispersed for a final lark, leaving Mrs. March and
her daughters under the festival tree.

"I don't think I ever ought to call myself 'unlucky Jo' again, when my
greatest wish has been so beautifully gratified," said Mrs. Bhaer,
taking Teddy's little fist out of the milk pitcher, in which he was
rapturously churning.

"And yet your life is very different from the one you pictured so long
ago. Do you remember our castles in the air?" asked Amy, smiling as
she watched Laurie and John playing cricket with the boys.

"Dear fellows! It does my heart good to see them forget business and
frolic for a day," answered Jo, who now spoke in a maternal way of all
mankind.