I could have helped it, but I can't get
on without my little woman any more than a..."

"Weathercock can without the wind," suggested Jo, as he paused for a
simile. Jo had grown quite her own saucy self again since Teddy came
home.

"Exactly, for Amy keeps me pointing due west most of the time, with
only an occasional whiffle round to the south, and I haven't had an
easterly spell since I was married. Don't know anything about the
north, but am altogether salubrious and balmy, hey, my lady?"

"Lovely weather so far. I don't know how long it will last, but I'm
not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship. Come home,
dear, and I'll find your bootjack. I suppose that's what you are
rummaging after among my things. Men are so helpless, Mother," said
Amy, with a matronly air, which delighted her husband.

"What are you going to do with yourselves after you get settled?" asked
Jo, buttoning Amy's cloak as she used to button her pinafores.

"We have our plans. We don't mean to say much about them yet, because
we are such very new brooms, but we don't intend to be idle. I'm going
into business with a devotion that shall delight Grandfather, and prove
to him that I'm not spoiled. I need something of the sort to keep me
steady. I'm tired of dawdling, and mean to work like a man."

"And Amy, what is she going to do?" asked Mrs. March, well pleased at
Laurie's decision and the energy with which he spoke.

"After doing the civil all round, and airing our best bonnet, we shall
astonish you by the elegant hospitalities of our mansion, the brilliant
society we shall draw about us, and the beneficial influence we shall
exert over the world at large. That's about it, isn't it, Madame
Recamier?" asked Laurie with a quizzical look at Amy.

"Time will show. Come away, Impertinence, and don't shock my family by
calling me names before their faces," answered Amy, resolving that
there should be a home with a good wife in it before she set up a salon
as a queen of society.

"How happy those children seem together!" observed Mr. March, finding
it difficult to become absorbed in his Aristotle after the young couple
had gone.

"Yes, and I think it will last," added Mrs. March, with the restful
expression of a pilot who has brought a ship safely into port.

"I know it will. Happy Amy!" and Jo sighed, then smiled brightly as
Professor Bhaer opened the gate with an impatient push.

Later in the evening, when