“Yes:  that is just it.  So remember!”

“I’ll ’memberer.  Oh, there’s Karlo!  I’m going to look for chestnuts with him to-morrow.  Good-by, Mr. Brown!”

“Good-by, little Sunshine!”

And, for a good hour, Mr. Brown, pacing up and down the garden-walk, took counsel with his own heart, and, we may hope, found it docile.

The next day, he said to Kitty,—­

“I have been telling your brother that he had better let you board at Yellow Springs this winter, and attend the lectures at the college.  Should you like it?”

“Oh, ever so much!” exclaimed Kitty eagerly.  “But we were to keep house together at Outpost.”

“Karl thinks it will be as well to shut up the house and leave farm-matters to Seth and Mehitable, until spring, when Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs return.  He will prefer for himself to spend the winter in Greenfield, perhaps in Dr. Gershom’s family.  If you are at Antioch College, I can perhaps help you with your studies.  I take some private pupils.”

Mr. Brown did not make this proposition with his usual fluency.  Indeed, he was embarrassed to a considerable extent; and so, no doubt, was Kitty, who answered confusedly,—­

“I could try; but I never shall be fit for any thing.  I never-I never shall know much; though, if you will try to teach me”—­

“I will try, Kitty, with all my heart.  You have excellent abilities, and it is foolish to say you ‘never can be fit’ for almost any position.”

“O Mr. Brown! it seems to me as if I was such a poor sort of creature, compared with almost any one!”

“Dora, for instance?”

“Yes.  I never can be Dora:  now, could I?”

“No, any more than I could be Mr. Burroughs.  But perhaps Kitty Windsor and Frank Brown may fill their places in this world, and the next too, as well as these friends of theirs whom they both admire.”

“O Mr. Brown! will you help me?” asked Kitty, turning involuntarily toward him, and raising her handsome dark eyes and glowing face to his.  He took her hands, looked kindly into her eyes, and said both tenderly and solemnly,—­

“Yes, Kitty, God helping me, I will be to you all that a thoughtful brother could be to his only sister; and, what you may be to me in the dim future, that future only knows.”

And Kitty’s eyes drooped happily beneath that earnest gaze, and upon her cheeks glowed the dawn of a hope as vague as it was sweet.

CHAPTER XLI.

Karl to Dora.  Greenfield, Iowa, march 15.  My dear cousin,—­

Yours of the 10th duly received, and as welcome as your letters always are.  So you have seen the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof, and find that all is vanity, as saith the Preacher.  Do not imagine that I am studying divinity instead of medicine; but to-day is Sunday, and I have been twice to meeting, and taken tea with the minister besides.