"So I did. Well, as dear old Picter used to say, 'What's the use ob
libin' if you've got trew larnin'?'"

"O Dora! how can you, how can you!-you cruel, cruel girl, how can
you speak of him!" cried Kitty in a passion of anger and grief; and,
pushing back her chair so violently as to upset it, she rushed out
of the room.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" exclaimed Dora in great distress; and would
have followed her, had not Karl held her back.

"Don't go, dear; it will be of no use: she will not let you into her
room. Poor Kitty! she loved her mother so passionately, and her
nature is so intense! We must make great excuses, Dora, for our
sister's little inequalities of temper: I think her great loss is at
the bottom of all."

Dora looked thoughtful, and presently said slowly, "I know it, Karl;
but it does seem to me rather unjust that she should hate poor Pic's
memory so bitterly even now. He did not know any more than I that he
had small-pox when he came back that time from New York; and when
Kitty told him that Aunt Lucy had taken it from him, and was very
sick, he felt so badly, that I think it prevented his getting well."

"O Dora, don't say that! Kitty could not have blamed him openly."

"I don't know what she said; but, from that day, he grew worse, and
died without being able to bid me good-by,--Pic, who brought me away
from those cruel people, and cared for me as if I had been his
child. O dear, dear old Pic!"