"Yes, indeed! Very happy to see you, Mr. Ginniss; walk in," said Kitty, who, if she had never heard the line, certainly knew how to apply the idea, of,--"It is not the rose; but it has lived near the rose." "Where is Dora?" asked Karl, glancing round the room where the pretty tea-table stood spread, and Dora's hat and gloves lay upon a chair; but no other sign of her presence was to be found. "Why," said Kitty, laughing a little, "Dolly took a fancy for rafting down the river on a log that she somehow managed to push off from the bank. Of course, she slipped off the first thing, and might have been drowned; but Argus got her out somehow, and Seth, hearing the noise, ran down and brought her home. Of course, she was dripping wet; and Dora has put her to bed." "Is it a sanitary or a disciplinary measure?" asked Karl: "because, if the latter, we shall have Dora out of spirits all the evening. She never punishes Dolce half so much as she does herself." "Well, I believe it is a little of both this time," replied Kitty. "I think she'll be down to tea. You had better take Mr. Ginniss right into your bedroom, Charlie. Perhaps he'd like to wash his hands before tea." "Thank you; I should, if you please," said the guest, and left the room with his host. When they returned, Dora was waiting to receive them, somewhat pale and sad at having felt obliged to refuse Sunshine's entreaties to "get up, and be the 'bedientest little girl that ever was," but courteously attentive to the guest, and ready to be interested and sympathetic in hearing all Karl's little experiences of the day. As for Kitty, her careless inquiry on seating herself at the table, of,-- "How has Mr. Brown been since he got home?" may serve as index to the course of her meditations. "How in the world came Dolce to undertake the rafting business?" asked Karl, when his sister's inquiries had been amply satisfied. "Why, poor little thing!" said Dora, laughing a little, "she thought she had found the way to heaven. She noticed from the window how very blue the river was, and, as she says, 'goldy all over in spots:' so she slipped out, and ran down there, forgetting for once that she is forbidden to do so. Standing on the brink, she saw the reflection of the little white clouds floating overhead, and was suddenly possessed with an idea that this was heaven, or the entrance to it. So, as she told me, she thought she would float out on the log till she got to the middle, and then 'slip off, and fall right into heaven.'" "How absurd!" said Kitty, laughing. "Not at all. She would certainly have reached heaven if she had carried out the plan," said Karl. "Don't, please," murmured Dora, with a little shiver. "Don't talk of it." "That is like a little sister of mine; a little adopted sister, at least. She was always talking of going to heaven, and planning to get there," said the guest.