"Why can't you talk as we do, then? You have been here long enough now, I should think." "Because she knows how to talk better, Miss Kit," said Karl good-humoredly. "Calling a shop a store is an Americanism, like calling a station-house a d‚p“t, or trousers pants." "Well, I thought we were Americans, Dora and all," retorted Kitty. "Mercy, child! don't let us plunge from philology into ethnology. I prefer to speculate upon Mr. Thomas Burroughs. Who is he? and what does he want of our Dora?" "To marry her, I suppose, or to ask her to marry Mr. Brown," snapped Kitty. "Perhaps he wants to ask my good word toward marrying you," suggested Dora, coloring deeply. "No such good luck as that, eh, Kitty?" said Karl with a laugh. "Good luck! I'm sure I'm in no hurry to be married; and, though I haven't had Dora's chances of seeing all sorts of men, I dare say I shall get as good a husband in the end," replied Kitty loftily. "But, contemplating for one moment the idea that it may not be an offer of marriage that Mr. Thomas Burroughs means by a 'matter of importance,' let us consider what else it can be," said Karl with a quizzical smile. "Perhaps he wants your ideas upon the campaign in Western Virginia, and a report of the general's real motives and intentions," suggested Dora gayly. "Perhaps he wants to engage his winter's butter; though I don't believe Dora is the one to ask about that," said Kitty. "Now, Kitty! I'm sure I made up the last, and you said it was as nice as you could do yourself." "Yes; but you turned all the buttermilk into the pig's pail instead of saving it for biscuits." "So I did. Well, as dear old Picter used to say, 'What's the use ob libin' if you've got trew larnin'?'" "O Dora! how can you, how can you!-you cruel, cruel girl, how can you speak of him!" cried Kitty in a passion of anger and grief; and, pushing back her chair so violently as to upset it, she rushed out of the room. "Oh, I am so sorry!" exclaimed Dora in great distress; and would have followed her, had not Karl held her back. "Don't go, dear; it will be of no use: she will not let you into her room. Poor Kitty! she loved her mother so passionately, and her nature is so intense! We must make great excuses, Dora, for our sister's little inequalities of temper: I think her great loss is at the bottom of all." Dora looked thoughtful, and presently said slowly, "I know it, Karl; but it does seem to me rather unjust that she should hate poor Pic's memory so bitterly even now. He did not know any more than I that he had small-pox when he came back that time from New York; and when Kitty told him that Aunt Lucy had taken it from him, and was very sick, he felt so badly, that I think it prevented his getting well." "O Dora, don't say that! Kitty could not have blamed him openly."