`Your hair! Your beautiful hair!'

`Oh, Jo, how could you? Your one beauty.'

`My dear girl, there was no need of this.'

`She doesn't look like my Jo any more, but I love her dearly for it!'

As everyone exclaimed, and Beth hugged the cropped head tenderly, Jo assumed an indifferent air, which did not deceive anyone a particle, and said, rumpling up the brown bush, and trying to look as if she liked it, `It doesn't affect the fate of the nation, so don't wail, Beth. It will be good for my vanity; I was getting too proud of my wig. It will do my brains good to have that mop taken off; my head feels deliciously light and cool, and the barber said I could soon have a curly crop, which will be boyish, becoming, and easy to keep in order. I'm satisfied; so please take the money, and let's have supper.'

`Tell me all about it, Jo. I am not quite satisfied, but I can't blame you, for I know how willingly you sacrificed your vanity, as you call it, to your love. But, my dear, it was not necessary, and I'm afraid you will regret it, one of these days,' said Mrs. March.

`No, I won't!' returned Jo, stoutly, feeling much relieved that her prank was not entirely condemned.

`What made you do it?' asked Amy, who would as soon have thought of cutting off her head as her pretty hair.

`Well, I was wild to do something for Father,' replied Jo, as they gathered about the table, for healthy young people can eat even in the midst of trouble. `I hate to borrow as much as Mother does, and I knew Aunt March would croak; she always does, if you ask for a nine-pence. Meg gave all her quarterly salary toward the rent, and I only got some clothes with mine, so I felt wicked, and was bound to have some money, if I sold the nose off my face to get it.'

`You needn't feel wicked, my child; you had no winter things, and got the simplest with your own hard earnings, said Mrs. March, with a look that warmed Jo's heart.

`I hadn't the least idea of selling my hair at first, but as I went along I kept thinking what I could do, and feeling as if I'd like to dive into some of the rich stores and help myself. In a barber's window I saw tails of hair with the prices marked; and one black tail, not so thick as mine, was forty dollars. It came over me all of a sudden that I had one thing to make money out of, and without stopping to think, I walked in, asked if they bought hair, and what they would give for mine.'

`I don't see how you dared to do it,' said Beth, in a tone of awe.

`Oh, he was a little man who looked as if he merely lived to oil his hair. He rather stared, at first, as if he wasn't used to having girls bounce into his shop and ask him to buy their hair. He said he didn't care about mine, it wasn't the fashionable colour, and he never paid much for it in the first place; the work put into it made it dear, and so on. It was getting late, and I was afraid, if it wasn't done right away, that I shouldn't have it done at all, and you know when I start to do a thing, I hate to give it up; so I begged him to take it, and told him why I was in such a hurry. It was silly, I dare say, but it changed his mind, for I got rather excited, and told the story in my topsy-turvy way, and his wife heard, and said so kindly: "Take it, Thomas, and oblige the young lady; I'd do as much for our Jimmy any day if I had a spire of hair worth selling".'

`Who was Jimmy?' asked Amy, who liked to have things explained as they went along.

`Her son, she said, who was in the army. How friendly such things make strangers feel, don't they? She talked away all the time the man clipped, and diverted my mind nicely.'