Маленькие женщины / Little Women. Уровень 3

“Oh, tell me about it!”

Laurie told her how he had been at school in Vevay, 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.

“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 Vevay.”

“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, mademoiselle.

“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.”

“Curly black hair, brown skin, big black eyes, handsome nose, fine teeth, small hands and feet, taller than I am, very polite, for a boy, and altogether jolly.

It was on the tip of Jo's tongue to ask, but she checked herself[6 - checked herself – остановила себя] in time and, with unusual tact, tried to find out in a round-about way.

“I suppose you are going to college soon?”

Laurie smiled. “I won't go before seventeen, anyway.”

“Aren't you but fifteen?” asked Jo, looking at the tall lad, whom she had imagined seventeen already.

“Sixteen, next month.

“How I wish I was going to college! You don't look as if you liked it.”

“I hate it! And I don't like the way fellows do either, in this country.”

“What do you like?”

“To live in Italy, and to enjoy myself in my own way.”

Jo wanted very much to ask what his own way was, but changed the subject by saying, “That's a splendid polka! Why don't you go and try it?”

“If you will come too,” he answered.

“I can't, for I told Meg I wouldn't, because…”

“Because, what?”

“You won't tell?”

“Never!”

“Well, I have a bad trick of standing before the fire, and so I burn my frocks, and I scorched this one, and though it's nicely mended, it shows, and Meg told me to keep still so no one would see it.

But Laurie didn't laugh. He only looked down a minute, and the expression of his face puzzled Jo when he said very gently, “Never mind that.