r. Mr. Stepel was excusably enthusiastic
about its beauty, and Jo as cool as if it had been a wig. Sometimes I
thought this peculiar hair was an expression of her own peculiar
character.

Letty said truly that Jo had a gift of speech; and she, having said her
say about the hair, dismissed the matter, with no uneasy recurring to it,
and took up a book from the table, declaring she was tired of her seam;--
she always was tired of sewing! Presently she laughed.

"What is it, Jo?" said I.

"Why, it is 'Jane Eyre,' with Letty Allis's name on the blank leaf. That
is what I call an anachronism, spiritually. What do you think about the
book, Letty?" said she, turning her lithe figure round in the great chair
toward the little Quakeress, whose pretty red head and apple-blossom of a
face bloomed out of her gray attire and prim collar with a certain
fascinating contrast.

"I think it has a very good moral tendency, Cousin Jo."

The clear, hazel eyes flashed a most amused comment at me.

"Well, what do you call the moral, Letty?"

"Why,--I should think,--I do not quite know that the moral is stated,
Josephine,--but I think thee will allow it was a great triumph of
principle for Jane Eyre to leave Mr. Rochester when she discovered that he
was married."

Jo flung herself back impatiently in the chair, and began an harangue.

"That is a true world's judgment! And you, you innocent little Quaker
girl! think it is the height of virtue not to elope with a married man,
who has entirely and deliberately deceived you, and adds to the wrong of
deceit the insult of proposing an elopement! Triumph of principle! I
should call it the result of common decency, rather,--a thing that the
instinct of any woman would compel her to do. My only wonder is how Jane
Eyre could continue to love him."

"My dear young friend," said I, rather grimly, "when a woman loves a man,
it is apt, I regret to say, to become a fact, not a theory; and facts are
stubborn things, you know. It is not easy to set aside a real affection."

"I know that, ma'am," retorted Jo, in a slightly sarcastic tone; "it is a
painful truth; still, I do think a deliberate deceit practised on me by
any man would decapitate any love I had for him, quite inevitably."

"So it might, in your case," replied I; "for you never will love a man,
only your idea of one. You will go on enjoying your mighty theories and
dreams till suddenly the juice of that 'little western flower' drips on