"
"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.
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