he
said, looking ready to fly to the ends of the earth.

"Leave a note at Aunt March's. Jo, give me that pen and paper."

Tearing off the blank side of one of her newly copied pages, Jo drew
the table before her mother, well knowing that money for the long, sad
journey must be borrowed, and feeling as if she could do anything to
add a little to the sum for her father.

"Now go, dear, but don't kill yourself driving at a desperate pace.
There is no need of that."

Mrs. March's warning was evidently thrown away, for five minutes later
Laurie tore by the window on his own fleet horse, riding as if for his
life.

"Jo, run to the rooms, and tell Mrs. King that I can't come. On the way
get these things. I'll put them down, they'll be needed and I must go
prepared for nursing. Hospital stores are not always good. Beth, go
and ask Mr. Laurence for a couple of bottles of old wine. I'm not too
proud to beg for Father. He shall have the best of everything. Amy,
tell Hannah to get down the black trunk, and Meg, come and help me find
my things, for I'm half bewildered."

Writing, thinking, and directing all at once might well bewilder the
poor lady, and Meg begged her to sit quietly in her room for a little
while, and let them work. Everyone scattered like leaves before a gust
of wind, and the quiet, happy household was broken up as suddenly as if
the paper had been an evil spell.

Mr. Laurence came hurrying back with Beth, bringing every comfort the
kind old gentleman could think of for the invalid, and friendliest
promises of protection for the girls during the mother's absence, which
comforted her very much. There was nothing he didn't offer, from his
own dressing gown to himself as escort. But the last was impossible.
Mrs. March would not hear of the old gentleman's undertaking the long
journey, yet an expression of relief was visible when he spoke of it,
for anxiety ill fits one for traveling. He saw the look, knit his heavy
eyebrows, rubbed his hands, and marched abruptly away, saying he'd be
back directly. No one had time to think of him again till, as Meg ran
through the entry, with a pair of rubbers in one hand and a cup of tea
in the other, she came suddenly upon Mr. Brooke.

"I'm very sorry to hear of this, Miss March," he said, in the kind,
quiet tone which sounded very pleasantly to her perturbed spirit. "I
came to offer myself as escort to your mother. Mr. Laurence has
commissions for me in Washi