linguistic:paraphrasing, structural:expansion
Part Two

(Published separately in the United Kingdom as Good Wives)

Three years later, Meg and John marry and learn how to live together. When they have twins, Meg is a devoted mother, but John begins to feel neglected and left out. Meg seeks advice from Marmee, who helps her find balance in her married life by making more time for wifely duties and encouraging John to become more involved with child rearing.

Laurie graduates from college, having put in the effort to do well in his last year, with Jo's prompting. Amy is chosen over Jo to go on a European tour with her aunt. Beth's health is weak, due to complications from scarlet fever, and her spirits are down. While trying to uncover the reason for Beth's sadness, Jo realizes that Laurie has fallen in love. At first she believes it's with Beth, but soon senses it's with herself. Jo confides in Marmee, telling her that she loves Laurie like a brother and that she could not love him in a romantic way.

Jo decides she wants a bit of adventure and to put distance between herself and Laurie, hoping he will forget his feelings. She spends six months with a friend of her mother who runs a boarding house in New York City, serving as governess for her two children. Jo takes German lessons with another boarder, Professor Friedrich Bhaer. He has come to America from Berlin to care for the orphaned sons of his sister. For extra money, Jo writes salacious romance stories, anonymously, for sensational newspapers. Suspecting her secret, Friedrich mentions such writing is unprincipled and base. Jo is persuaded to give up that type of writing, as her time in New York comes to an end, unaware that Friedrich has fallen in love with her. When she returns to Massachusetts, Laurie proposes marriage, and she declines.

Laurie travels to Europe with his grandfather, to escape his heartbreak. At home, the lasting results of Beth's scarlet fever slowly begin to kill her. Jo devotes her time to the care of her dying sister. Laurie encounters Amy in Europe, and he slowly falls in love with her, as he begins to see her in a new light. She is unimpressed by the aimless, idle, and forlorn attitude he has adopted, since being rejected by Jo, and she inspires him to find his purpose and do something worthwhile with his life. With the news of Beth's death, they meet for consolation, and their romance grows. Amy's aunt will not allow Amy to return, unchaperoned, with Laurie and his grandfather, so, they marry, before returning home from Europe.

Friedrich is in Massachusetts on business and visits the Marches, daily, for two weeks. On his last day, he proposes to Jo, and the two become engaged, as she realizes she loves him. Because the Professor is poor, the wedding must wait, while he establishes a good income by going out west to teach. A year goes by without much success; later, Aunt March dies and leaves her large estate, Plumfield, to Jo, who marries Friedrich and turns the house into a school. They have two sons of their own, and Amy and Laurie have a daughter. At apple-picking time, Marmee celebrates her 60th birthday at Plumfield, with her husband, her three surviving daughters, their husbands, and her five grandchildren.