"There's no need of leaving every thing round, the way some folks do. Dolly, I do wish you'd set up your chair when you've done with it; and here's a mess of stuff"—
"Oh, don't throw it away, Kitty! It's my moss; and I'm going to make the pussies a house of stones, and have it grow all over moss. Dora said I might—Oh, oh! you're real naughty and ugly now, Kitty Windsor; and I sha'n't love you, and Argus shall bite you"—
But Kitty, with a contemptuous laugh, was already walking away, taking especial pains to tread upon the bits of bright moss as they lay scattered along the path.
"Dora, see! I do hate-no, I dislike-Kitty, just as hard as I can; and I can't get any more pretty moss"—
The child was crying passionately; and Dora left every thing to take her in her arms, and soothe and quiet her.
"Aunt Kitty is very neat and nice, little Sunshine; and the moss has earth clinging to it that might drop on the floor; and, besides, it takes up room, and we have so little,—hardly more than a mouse has in its nest. Oh! I never told you how I found a whole nest of mice in one of my slippers once,—six little tiny fellows, no bigger than your thumb; and every one with two little black, beady eyes, and a funny little tail."
"When was it? When you was a little teenty girl, like me? And was you afraid of the big mouse? What did you do with them?"
"Come, wipe the teaspoons, and I will tell you," said Dora, going back to her work; and, the April cloud having passed, the Sunshine was as bright as ever.
Karl, behind his newspaper, heard, saw, and understood the whole; and his mental comment might have seemed to some hearers but little connected with the scene that called it forth. It was simply,—
"Confound old Brown!"