It's easy to love Amy. She’s always delighted him, from the days when she mispronounced words and put on airs like a miniature duchess. She made him laugh, though he often had to disguise his laughter with coughs so as not to hurt her tender feelings. She adored him and it was easy to adore right back.
She still makes him laugh with her earnestness to prove herself grown-up and cultured, but there’s a vulnerability lurking there in her fierce desire to be judged on her own merits, to break away from the shadow of Meg’s grace, Jo’s passion, Beth’s compassion, and he can’t help but respect that. It will be easy to be a good husband to her, to take pride in her golden beauty as she floats along on his arm—she’s the only March girl who feels comfortable at parties—to sit with her before the fire at night and talk, to shower her with the pretty, delicate things she so enjoys, to be a good father to their children. So easy. So very, very easy.
He tells himself it was a close thing, his escape from a life with Jo: he was so cursed lucky that she had the fear foresight to say no and keep both of them from happiness making a monumental mistake. Marrying Jo would have been a dream disaster. She would have been completely perfect unsuitable as Mrs. Lawrence, with her enchanting awkward ways and her habit of flying into beautiful tempers. Too passionate was his Jo, too given to speaking her brilliant mind. The parties and balls he is forced to likes to throw would have been hilarious massacres, with Jo offending pompous, irritating important people right and left. His damned reputation would have been ruined.
She would have cared not a fig for the petty lovely things his money could have given her; she would have insisted on running all around the world and getting into adventures scrapes. They would have had glorious horrific rows all the time and making up would have been a joy chore. He yearns shudders to imagine what their children would be like, their home warm messy and alive never quiet. He would never have to get a chance to rest, and he would have been happy miserable. Every day would have been wonderful difficult, a gift labor, never boring easy. He would never have been able to live without her marvelous exhausting challenges.
Yes. Things have definitely turned out for the worse better.