“Mustn’t kiss,” she muttered. “Amy and Beth won’t mind, though,” she added quickly. “Come on in, they are all waiting for us.” The girls found that they were standing on a sidewalk opposite a little garden gate that opened on a straight path leading to a pretty, gabled wooden cottage snuggled under big trees. As Jo spoke she swung wide the gate, and the three hurried up to the porch. As they set foot on the top step the door opened, and Jo’s three sisters appeared, beckoning. “Come on—hurry. Isn’t it cold, though!” Rose and Ruth felt as though it were not the first time by many that they had passed through the hospitable door and scampered down the chilly hallway into the big, comfortable room with its coal fire blazing red-faced at one end, its prints and photographs on the walls, its easy chairs and sofa, its winter roses and geraniums in the windows. They felt, indeed, very much at home, and completely forgot how it happened that they were there at all. Evidently they were expected, for Meg asked what had made them so late. “We ran, anyway,” Jo told her. “Rose could beat me, I believe. Don’t you wish we were boys, Rose, and could run real races?” “Take off your wraps,” said Amy. “Oh, Ruth, you’ve a new dress!” It was undoubtedly quite new. Ruth looked down at herself with astonishment and delight. Amy was helping her off with a long cloak of heavy blue cloth, and under that Ruth saw her full skirts spreading out deliciously—pale grey with pale blue bows of ribbon looping up the overskirt. Her waist was grey, with more blue bows and ribbon braiding, and she had on the loveliest white batiste undersleeves that buttoned close to her wrists. It was too fascinating. She whirled about, while her skirts bobbed and swung, and there was Rose in a dress just as quaint and pretty and absurd, only it was decorated with pink bows and braiding. “They are both new,” she cried. “Oh, what fun it is!” “I like pretty clothes, don’t you?” said Amy, folding away Ruth’s cloak nicely. “Jo doesn’t care—says clothes are a nuisance, and if she had only been a boy she’d never have had to think of them at all.” [Illustration: THEY FINALLY REACHED THE COTTAGE ] “It does seem a pity Jo wasn’t born a boy,” Beth remarked, “since we haven’t one in the family, and she wants to be one so badly.” “It’s one of the ‘indescrutable’ things that happen,” Amy finished, and then looked troubled as the rest shouted with laughter. “Never mind,” gurgled Rose, “it wouldn’t be Amy unless she made those perfectly scrumptious mistakes.” “Well, girls, Hannah’s got a little lunch ready for us, and if we are to get to the river in time we must start soon,” Meg admonished them. “To the river?” Rose and Ruth both wanted to know. “Yes—the skating party, you know. There are to be big bonfires and lots of fun, and the ice is perfect.” Just then Hannah opened the door. “It’s time ye was eatin’, children,” she told them.