Winter in America was bitterly cold; everything was cold, and solemn, none of the colors and warmth and music of Christmases of his youth.

His grandfather was kind, but Laurie missed his beautiful, expansive mother, and their airy house full of music and light.

When he met the Marches, it felt like coming home for the first time since he had left Europe.

Laurie decided, years later, that he had fallen in love with Jo March from the moment he met her, there with her burnt dress and one glove, hiding against the wall. At the time, though, all he thought about her was that she was a wonderfully jolly and good-natured girl, and he did awfully want to be better friends with her.

The Marches were the best thing that had ever happened to Laurie. It was as if they were his own family. Pretty Meg and shy kind Beth and amusing Amy were all like his own sisters. Mrs. March had goodness enough to be mother to the world, including under her scope one spoiled orphan boy.

And as for Jo.... Well, Jo was his best friend, and his favorite companion, and he loved her dearly. None of that would ever change, no matter what else might.

Jo was prickly and awkward and boyish and proud, and Laurie loved her best all of the people in the world, and one day he would marry her.

They would have a long engagement, because he knew Jo would not want to leave her family soon. It had taken her years to adjust to Meg's leaving; Laurie understood it might take her just as long to become ready for her own marriage, to leave her beloved Beth and Mrs. and Mr. March. A long engagement was only fair.

Truthfully, a long engagement was perhaps best for him, as well. He knew that the Marches had worries about him, about how ready he was, about how steady he could be. If he and Jo were to marry, he would have to prove that he could grow up. He would have to be ready for their marriage.

One spring day, they spent the day having wild romps. In the evening, Laurie walked Jo home.

"When we grow up," Laurie began, and Jo groaned and covered her eyes.

"Oh, Teddy, let's don't go and think about that! Things are so good now; why do you want to ruin it by thinking ahead?"

"It doesn't have to ruin anything, Jo," Laurie said. "It could be wonderful."

"No," Jo grumbled, "it will be awful. Meg will get married, and then the others, and nothing will ever be like it was. I don't know *why* children have to grow up. I wish we could just stay like this forever."

Laurie frowned, but he walked on in thoughtful silence.

Laurie had a daydream of a summer afternoon, of a picnic underneath a shady tree. He lay lazily on the blanket, his head resting in Jo's lap, as she occasionally ran her fingers through his hair. The Marches and the Brookes and Laurie's grandfather sat off in the distance as well, and the air was filled with the innocent and joyful calls of the children who ran around in the heat, Daisy and Demi and his and Jo's own beautiful yet undefined child.

This was Laurie's dearest daydream.

When they were married, for their wedding trip Laurie could take Jo to Europe, just as he had promised years ago. He would show her London, and Paris, and all the lovely French countryside. They would go to Italy, and Laurie would show her the cities where he was born and where he grew up. He would show her his parents' graves, and the beautiful centuries of art, and he would teach her Italian.

Jo would love Europe; they would stay there for months, perhaps even a few years. When they came home, Laurie would build her a house, something beautiful and lovely and close to her family. Jo could write, without having to worry about anything else.

Laurie had it all imagined. Not even Jo, contrary as she was, would be able to object to the plan. Jo did love him, he knew, and if Jo never wanted things to change -- well, what other way was there to keep them together and chums forever?

His first winter in America, he watched out the windows of his grandfather's house almost everyday. There were four girls living in the modest house next door. They looked pretty, and healthy, and happy, and Laurie watched them and their fun times and pined.

If only someday, Laurie thought wistfully, he could be part of that family.

Laurie's last year of college was his most difficult and his least enjoyable. It was worthwhile, despite those drawbacks, for he came out of it accomplished and proud, graduating with honors and enjoying the praise and love of his family and friends.

He had shown he was grown, and mature. He had completed what his grandfather had always wanted of him. He was ready, now, to be a man.

Tomorrow he would meet alone with Jo. Tomorrow he would finally come out with what had been in his heart for so many years.

Laurie was nervous, of course, but he swallowed it down manfully. It would all be all right. It always was.

In his bed that night, he thought back on all his and Jo's scrapes and romps through the years, of all their adventures and conversations and laughs. They quarrelled and they made up once again. Jo and her sisters had made him a better man than he otherwise would have been, Laurie knew: he worked where he otherwise would be idle, he stayed good and true where he had seen other young men fall into bad company or ill ways, not because they were bad, but simply from lack of other direction.

Laurie was lucky, for he had the Marches, as dear to him as any family by blood could ever be. He had Jo, his best girl. Tomorrow, he would have all of them forever, Laurie thought, and he fell asleep with a full heart, warm to his core.

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