` Knowing your fondness for these fine animals , I brought this one to your pen . ' ` Very good , Commodore ! Try again , ' said Mrs Jo , much pleased with her gift , which caused the Professor to prophesy ` works of Shakespeare ' from its depths , so great would be the inspiration of the beloved bruin . ` As Aunt Meg will wear caps , in spite of her youth , I got Ludmilla to get me some bits of lace . Hope you 'll like 'em ' ; and out of a soft paper came some filmy things , one of which soon lay like a net of snowflakes on Mrs Meg 's pretty hair . ' I could n't find anything swell enough for Aunt Amy , because she has everything she wants , so I brought a little picture that always makes me think of her when Bess was a baby ' ; and he handed her an oval ivory locket , on which was painted a goldenhaired Madonna , with a rosy child folded in her blue mantle . ` How lovely ! ' cried everyone ; and Aunt Amy at once hung it about her neck on the blue ribbon from Bess 's hair , charmed with her gift ; for it recalled the happiest year of her life . ` Now , I flatter myself I 've got just the thing for Nan , neat but not gaudy , a sort of sign you see , and very appropriate for a doctor , ' said Emil , proudly displaying a pair of lava earrings shaped like little skulls . ` Horrid ! ' And Bess , who hated ugly things , turned her eyes to her own pretty shells . ` She wo n't wear earrings , ' said Josie . ` Well , she 'll enjoy punching your ears then . She 's never so happy as when she 's overhauling her fellow creatures and going for 'em with a knife , ' answered Emil , undisturbed . ` I 've got a lot of plunder for you fellows in my chest , but I knew I should have no peace till my cargo for the girls was unloaded . Now tell me all the news . ' And , seated on Amy 's best marbletopped table , the sailor swung his legs and talked at the rate of ten knots an hour , till Aunt Jo carried them all off to a grand family tea in honour of the Commodore . Chapter 3 . JO 'S LAST SCRAPE The March family had enjoyed a great many surprises in the course of their varied career , but the greatest of all was when the Ugly Duckling turned out to be , not a swan , but a golden goose , whose literary eggs found such an unexpected market that in ten years Jo 's wildest and most cherished dream actually came true . How or why it happened she never clearly understood , but all of a sudden she found herself famous in a small way , and , better still , with a snug little fortune in her pocket to clear away the obstacles of the present and assure the future of her boys .
It began during a bad XXXXX when everything went wrong at Plumfield ; times were hard , the school dwindled , Jo overworked herself and had a long illness ; Laurie and Amy were abroad , and the Bhaers too proud to ask help even of those as near and dear as this generous pair .
Amy Emil Jo Josie Madonna Nan Shakespeare hour locket year