PREVIOUSLY: Jo met Laurie, the Laurence boy. He explained why he went by Laurie instead of Theodore.
“I hate my name, too - so sentimental! I wish every one would say Jo, instead of Josephine. How did you make the boys stop calling you Dora?”
“I thrashed ‘em.”
“I can’t thrash Aunt March, so I suppose I shall have to bear it;” and Jo resigned herself with a sigh.
“Don’t you like to dance, Miss Jo?” asked Laurie, looking as if he thought the name suited her.
“I like it well enough if there is plenty of room, and every one is lively. In a place like this I’m sure to upset something, tread on people’s toes, or do something dreadful, so I keep out of mischief, and let Meg do the pretty. Don’t you dance?”
“Sometimes; you see I’ve been abroad a good many years, and haven’t been about enough yet to know how you do things here.”
“Abroad!” cried Jo, “Oh tell me about it! I love dearly to hear people describe their travels.”
Quel nom a cette jeune demoiselle en les pantoufles jolis?
Laurie didn’t seem to know where to begin; but Jo’s eager questions soon set him going, and he told her how he had been at school in Vevey, where the boys never wore hats, and had a fleet of boats on the lake, and for holiday fun went on walking trips about Switzerland with their teachers. 1
“Don’t I wish I’d been there!” cried Jo. “Did you go to Paris?”
“We spent last winter there.”
“Can you talk French?”
“We were not allowed to speak anything else at Vevey.”
“Do say some. I can read it, but can’t pronounce.”
“Quel nom a cette jeune demoiselle en les pantoufles jolis?”
“How nicely you do it! Let me see - you said, ‘Who is the young lady in the pretty slippers,’ didn’t you?”
“Oui, madmoiselle.”
“It’s my sister Margaret, and you knew it was! Do you think she is pretty?”
“Yes; she makes me think of the German girls, she looks so fresh and quiet, and dances like a lady.” 2
Jo quite glowed with pleasure at this boyish praise of her sister, and stored it up to repeat to Meg. Both peeped, and criticised, and chatted, till they felt like old acquaintances. Laurie’s bashfulness soon wore off, for Jo’s gentlemanly demeanor amused and set him at ease, and Jo was her merry self again, because her dress was forgotten, and nobody lifted their eyebrows at her.
1 Per the text: “In the Swiss Alps, between Lausanne and Montreux, Vevey is a beauty spot under the mountains, on the north side of Lac Leman. Alcott visited Vevey in 1865 on her first trip to Europe, as a companion to the semi-invalid Anna Weld. It was there that she met a young Polish man, Ladislas Wisniewski, on whom the character of Laurie is partly based.” Louisa May Alcott RPF AU confirmed!
2 All the things a lady should be: Fresh, Quiet, And German