to find company for supper. Carrie often had in one of her
schoolteacher friends, or Babe one of her frivolous intimates, or
even Eva a staid guest of the old-girl type. There was always a
Sunday-night supper of potato salad, and cold meat, and coffee,
and perhaps a fresh cake. Jo rather enjoyed it, being a
hospitable soul. But he regarded the guests with the undazzled
eyes of a man to whom they were just so many petticoats, timid of
the night streets and requiring escort home. If you had
suggested to him that some of his sisters' popularity was due to
his own presence, or if you had hinted that the more kittenish of
these visitors were probably making eyes at him, he would have
stared in amazement and unbelief.

This Sunday night it turned out to be one of Carrie's friends.

"Emily," said Carrie, "this is my brother, Jo."

Jo had learned what to expect in Carrie's friends. Drab-looking
women in the late thirties, whose facial lines all slanted
downward.

"Happy to meet you," said Jo, and looked down at a different
sort altogether. A most surprisingly different sort, for one of
Carrie's friends. This Emily person was very small, and fluffy,
and blue-eyed, and crinkly looking. The corners of her mouth when
she smiled, and her eyes when she looked up at you, and her hair,
which was brown, but had the miraculous effect, somehow, of
looking golden.

Jo shook hands with her. Her hand was incredibly small, and