“I’ll wash them, of course; but, if you want to come down, you might leave the door open at the head of the back stairs, and I should hear if she called or cried.  And, now I think of it, I have a letter to show Karl and you.  I got it at the post-office.”

“From Mr. Brown?” asked Kitty quickly.

“No, from a Mr. Burroughs; a man I never heard of in my life till to-day.  But come down in a few minutes, and I will read it to you.”

“Well, don’t read it till I come.”

“No:  I won’t.”  And Dora quietly went out of the room, leaving Kitty to swing backward and forward in the white-cushioned rocking-chair, her dark eyes wandering half contemptuously, half enviously, over Dora’s collection of treasures, with an occasional glance at the sleeping child.

CHAPTER XX.

A letter and an offer.

In the kitchen, Dora found Karl waiting for her; and, while she eat her supper with the healthy relish of a young and vigorous creature, she gave her cousin an account of all the circumstances attending her meeting with the little girl, whom she described again as a foreigner, and probably French.

“And what’s to be done with her, Dora?” asked the young man rather gravely, when she had finished.

“Why, when she is well enough to tell who she is, and where she came from,—­that is, if she can talk English at all,—­we can return her to her friends; or, if they are not to be discovered, I will keep her myself.  That is,"-and the young girl paused suddenly, the blood rushing to her face, as she added,—­” that is, if you and Kitty are willing.  It is your house, not mine; though I’m afraid I am apt to forget.”

Karl looked at her reproachfully.

“When I brought you here, Dora Darling, I brought you home; and when my mother died, not yet a year ago, did she not bid us live together as brother and sisters, in love and harmony?”

“Yes; but”—­

“But what, Dora?”

“I am afraid sometimes I behave too much as if it were my own house,” faltered Dora.

“And so it is your own house, just as it is my own and Kitty’s own.  Have either of us ever made you feel that there was any difference, or that you had less right here than we?”

Dora made no reply; and, while Karl still waited for one the staircase-door opened softly, and Kitty appeared.

“The child is fast asleep,” said she:  “so I thought I would come down and hear the letter.”

“What letter?” asked Karl a little impatiently.

“Oh!  I haven’t told you.  Here it is.”

And Dora drew from her pocket, and held toward him, a large white envelope, boldly directed to “Miss Dora darling, care of Capt.  Charles Windsor”

“That’s nonsense.  I have beaten my sword into a ploughshare now, and am only plain mister,” said Capt.  Karl, glancing at the direction.