Karl nodded.

“That’s right,” said he; “and all the better for you to have had such a mother.”

“You’d say that, Mr. Windsor, if you knew what she’d done for me.  There ain’t many such mothers in any class,” said the young man heartily.

Karl looked at his new acquaintance with increasing favor, and found something very attractive in his open, manly face, and the honest smile with which he met his scrutiny.

“I hope you’ll stay with us some time, Mr. Ginniss,” said he heartily.

“Thank you; but, I believe, only for one day.  The journey was my principal object in coming; and I must be at Antioch College again in a week, or ten days at the outside.”

“Tell me about the life there.  I was at old Harvard, and never visited any other college,” said Karl; and the young men found plenty of conversation, until, in the soft twilight, they came upon the pleasant slope and vine-clad buildings of Outpost.

“Here is our house, or rather my cousin’s house,” said Karl.  “You have heard Mr. Brown speak of Dora?”

“Yes, before he went away,” said Ginniss significantly.

“But not since his return?” asked Karl eagerly.

“Very seldom.”

“Hem!  Seth, will you take our horses round?  Jump off, and come in, sir.  This is my sister Kitty, Mr. Ginniss.  A scholar of Mr. Brown’s, Kitty:  I dare say you remember his speaking of him.”

“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,—­