she won't be willing to have us frolic together as we do now."
"Won't she?" asked Laurie, anxiously.
"No, she can't bear fashionable young men, and she'd shut us all up in bandboxes rather than have us associate with them."
"Well, she needn't get out her bandboxes yet; I'm not a fashionable party, and don't mean to be; but I do like harmless larks now and then, don't you?"
"Yes, nobody minds them, so lark away, but don't get wild, will you? or there will be an end of all our good times."
"I'll be a double distilled saint."
"I can't bear saints; just be a simple, honest, respectable boy, and we'll never desert you. I don't know what I should do if you acted like Mr. King's son; he had plenty of money, but didn't know how to spend it, and got tipsy, and gambled, and ran away, and forged his father's name, I believe, and was altogether horrid."
"You think I'm likely to do the same? Much obliged."
"No I don't—oh, dear, no!—but I hear people talking about money being such a temptation, and I sometimes wish you were poor; I shouldn't worry then."
"Do you worry about me, Jo?"
"A little, when you look moody or discontented, as you sometimes do, for you've got such a strong will if you once get started wrong, I'm afraid it would be hard to stop you."
Laurie walked in silence a few minutes, and Jo
