as if she were already a little matchmaking matron.
She corralled all the men she had ever known and introduced them to
Babe, Carrie, and Eva separately, in pairs, and en masse. She got up
picnics. She stayed home while Jo took the three about. When she was
present she tried to look as plain and obscure as possible, so that the
sisters should show up to advantage. She schemed, and planned, and
contrived, and hoped; and smiled into Jo's despairing eyes.

And three years went by. Three precious years. Carrie still taught
school, and hated it. Eva kept house more and more complainingly as
prices advanced and allowance retreated. Stell was still Babe, the
family beauty. Emily's hair, somehow, lost its glint and began to look
just plain brown. Her crinkliness began to iron out.

"Now, look here!" Jo argued, desperately, one night. "We could be
happy, anyway. There's plenty of room at the house. Lots of people
begin that way. Of course, I couldn't give you all I'd like to, at
first. But maybe, after a while--" No dreams of salons, and brocade,
and velvet-footed servitors, and satin damask now. Just two rooms, all
their own, all alone, and Emily to work for. That was his dream. But
it seemed less possible than that other absurd one had been.

Emily was as practical a little thing as she looked fluffy. She knew
women. Especially did she know Eva, and Carrie, and Babe. She tried to
imagine herself taking the household affairs and the housekeeping
pocket-book out of Eva's expert hands. So then she tried to picture
herself allowing the reins of Jo's house to remain in Eva's hands. And
everything feminine and normal in her rebelled. Emily knew she'd want
to put away her own freshly laundered linen, and smooth it, and pat it.
She was that kind of woman. She knew she'd want to do her own
delightful haggling with butcher and grocer. She knew she'd want to
muss Jo's hair, and sit on his knee, and even quarrel with him, if
necessary, without the awareness of three ever-present pairs of maiden
eyes and ears.

"No! No! We'd only be miserable. I know. Even if they didn't
object. And they would, Jo. Wouldn't they?"

His silence was miserable assent. Then, "But you do love me, don't
you, Emily?"

"I do, Jo. I love you--and love you--and love you. But, Jo, I--can't."

"I know it, dear. I knew it all the time, really. I just thought,
maybe, somehow----"

The two sat staring for a moment into space, th