"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 dpt, 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.