Meg has plans to stay with Annie Moffat, a wealthy friend. She packs all of her nicest clothes, but wishes she had more splendid attire. The Moffats are very fashionable. While Meg is there, they visit friends, go to plays, and give parties. At the first party, Meg wears her simple clothes, and she hears people gossiping that Meg's mother must be intending for Meg to marry Laurie for his money. At the next party, the Moffat girls insist on dressing Meg in borrowed finery. She is a bit embarrassed about the luxury of her attire, but she enjoys playing the role of a fashionable girl. Laurie is at the party and reprimands Meg for being so frivolous. His criticism makes Meg regret letting her friends dress her. When Meg gets home, she tells Marmee and Jo how she dressed up and overheard gossip about herself and Laurie. Marmee tells them that she has no such plans for Meg. She says that she hopes only that the girls are happy in youth and in marriage, and that they are good. She adds that she hopes that they understand that appearances are shallow and that true love is built on something deeper than money.
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Little Women
General FictionLittle Women is prefaced by an excerpt from John Bunyan's seventeenth-century novel The Pilgrim's Progress, an allegorical, or symbolic, novel about living a Christian life. The excerpt concerns the novel's female character, Mercy, not its main male...
