"Can't you see the lady wants to speak to you?" Sadie cried. "Don't stand there staring like a ninny, Jo Morley!"
Miss Emma motioned with her thin hand to a place on the window seat beside her chair.
"After what happened yesterday, I wanted to learn all about you, my dear——"
"Indeed, she asked me about six million questions!" Nan interjected.
"Naturally I wanted to find out about the girl that saved my life." Miss Emma made a quick imperative gesture as Jo would have interrupted. "And I found out many things; among them," instinctively the invalid's voice lowered, "that this girl, or rather her family, was in serious trouble."
Jo nodded and turned her face away. Just then she could not trust herself to speak.
"And what I want that girl to do," Aunt Emma continued while the spectators of the little scene drew closer to the two chief actors in it, "is to let me help, to try to repay the great debt I owe her."
As Jo looked up, wondering and a little startled, Miss Emma's hand covered hers.
"If your father's business is so involved that he can't see his way clear just now to sending you to Laurel Hall boarding school with Nan and Sadie," Miss Emma hurried on, "then I want you to let me take his place just now. I want you to let me send you instead. You will let me do that, won't you, dear?"
Jo's heart leaped with sudden hope, even while she felt that she could not accept so generous an offer. She was about to protest when she caught a warning glance from Nan, who was stationed behind the invalid's chair.