'Good Bye, My Beth'

Sisters watched beth as the clock struck 12 and fancied a change passed over her wan face. An hour went by and nothing happened except laurie's quiet departure for the station. Another hour still, no one came. And anxious fears of delay in the storm, or accidents by the way, or worst of all, a great grief at washington, hanted the girls. It was past two when jo, who stood at the window thinking how dreary the world looked in its winding sheet of snow, heard a movement by the bed. She saw meg kneeling before their mother's easy chair with her face hidden. A dreadful fear passed coldly over jo as she