` This is from a lady who wants you to adopt her child and lend her money to study art abroad for a few years . Better take it , and try your hand at a girl , mother . ' ` No , thank you , I will keep to my own line of business . What is that blotted one ? It looks rather awful , to judge by the ink , ' asked Mrs Jo , who beguiled her daily task by trying to guess from the outside what was inside her many letters . This proved to be a poem from an insane admirer , to judge by its incoherent style . ` TO J.M.B. ` Oh , were I a heliotrope , I would play poet , And blow a breeze of fragrance To you ; and none should know it . ` Your form like the stately elm When Phoebus gilds the morning ray ; Your cheeks like the ocean bed That blooms a rose in May . ` Your words are wise and bright , I bequeath them to you a legacy given ; And when your spirit takes its flight , May it bloom aflower in heaven . ` My tongue in flattering language spoke , And sweeter silence never broke in busiest street or loneliest glen . I take you with the flashes of my pen . ` Consider the lilies , how they grow ; They toil not , yet are fair , Gems and flowers and Solomon 's seal . The geranium of the world is J. M. Bhaer . ` JAMES ' While the boys shouted over this effusion -- which is a true one -- their mother read several liberal offers from budding magazines for her to edit them gratis ; one long letter from a young girl inconsolable because her favourite hero died , and ` would dear Mrs Bhaer rewrite the tale , and make it end good ? ' another from an irate boy denied an autograph , who darkly foretold financial ruin and loss of favour if she did not send him and all other fellows who asked autographs , photographs , and auto-biographical sketches ; a minister wished to know her religion ; and an undecided maiden asked which of her two lovers she should marry . These samples will suffice to show a few of the claims made on a busy woman 's time , and make my readers pardon Mrs Jo if she did not carefully reply to all . ` That job is done . Now I will dust a bit , and then go to my work . I 'm all behind-hand , and serials ca n't wait ; so deny me to everybody , Mary . I wo n't see Queen Victoria if she comes today . '
And Mrs XXXXX threw down her napkin as if defying all creation . '
Bhaer Mary Phoebus aflower autographs daily liberal morning serials years