“Well, read the letter, do; I’m dying to hear it,” said Kitty impatiently; and her brother, with an affectation of extreme haste, unfolded the thick, large sheet of note-paper and read aloud:—­

“Having been requested to communicate with Miss Darling upon a matter of importance, Mr. Thomas Burroughs will do himself the honor of calling upon her, probably in the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 25.

“Cincinnati, Aug. 20.”

“Thursday, 25th!  Why, that is to-morrow!” exclaimed Karl, as he finished reading.

“Dated Cincinnati, you see!  It is some message from Mr. Brown.  He lives about twenty miles from Cincinnati,” said Kitty eagerly.

“I don’t think so.  Why should Mr. Brown send a message when he writes to me so often?” replied Dora with simplicity.

“I should think he did.  I suppose you expected a letter this afternoon, and that was what made you so bent upon driving to town in all the heat.”

“It wasn’t very hot, and you know we needed these things from the shop.”

“From the grocery-store, do you mean?” asked Kitty sharply.

“Yes.”

“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’?’”