out them, and I will pay for
the making up," replied Mrs. March, who took peculiar pleasure in
granting Beth's requests because she so seldom asked anything for
herself.

After many serious discussions with Meg and Jo, the pattern was chosen,
the materials bought, and the slippers begun. A cluster of grave yet
cheerful pansies on a deeper purple ground was pronounced very
appropriate and pretty, and Beth worked away early and late, with
occasional lifts over hard parts. She was a nimble little needlewoman,
and they were finished before anyone got tired of them. Then she wrote
a short, simple note, and with Laurie's help, got them smuggled onto
the study table one morning before the old gentleman was up.

When this excitement was over, Beth waited to see what would happen.
All day passed and a part of the next before any acknowledgement
arrived, and she was beginning to fear she had offended her crochety
friend. On the afternoon of the second day, she went out to do an
errand, and give poor Joanna, the invalid doll, her daily exercise. As
she came up the street, on her return, she saw three, yes, four heads
popping in and out of the parlor windows, and the moment they saw her,
several hands were waved, and several joyful voices screamed...

"Here's a letter from the old gentleman! Come quick, and read it!"

"Oh, Beth, he's sent you..." began Amy, gesticulating with unseemly
energy, but she got no further, for Jo quenched her by slamming down
the window.

Beth hurried on in a flutter of suspense. At the door her sisters
seized and bore her to the parlor in a triumphal procession, all
pointing and all saying at once, "Look there! Look there!" Beth did
look, and turned pale with delight and surprise, for there stood a
little cabinet piano, with a letter lying on the glossy lid, directed
like a sign board to "Miss Elizabeth March."

"For me?" gasped Beth, holding onto Jo and feeling as if she should
tumble down, it was such an overwhelming thing altogether.

"Yes, all for you, my precious! Isn't it splendid of him? Don't you
think he's the dearest old man in the world? Here's the key in the
letter. We didn't open it, but we are dying to know what he says,"
cried Jo, hugging her sister and offering the note.

"You read it! I can't, I feel so queer! Oh, it is too lovely!" and
Beth hid her face in Jo's apron, quite upset by her present.

Jo opened the paper and began to laugh, for the first words she sa