ght of my face, he called out, 'Oh, sister, what is the
matter--are you ill?' I ran to him and put the check into his hands, but
it was some minutes before I could speak. The wonderful fortune did not
overwhelm Nat as it had me. He was much stronger than I. Every stroke of
his pencil during the last year had developed and perfected his soul. He
was fast coming to have that consciousness of power which belongs to the
true artist, and makes a life self-centred.

"'I have felt that all this would come, dear,' he said, 'and more than
this too,' he added dreamily, 'we shall go on; this is only the outer gate
of our lives,'

"He prophesied more truly than he knew when he said that--my dear blessed
artist-souled martyr!

"I need not dwell on the details of the next half-year. A few words can
tell them; and then, again, worlds of words could not tell them.

"Three months from the day I carried the piece of chintz into the
overseer's office, Robert and I were married in the beautiful chapel where
papa used to preach. All the mills were shut, and the little chapel was
crowded with the workmen and workwomen. When we came out they were all
drawn up in lines on the green, and Robert and Mr. Maynard both made them
little speeches. Nat and Miss Penstock and Patrick were in Mr. Maynard's
carriage, and Robert and I stood on the ground by the carriage-door. After
the people had gone, Mr. Maynard came up to me and put both his hands on
my shoulders, just as he had done three years before, and said, 'You were
a brave girl, but you had to take me for your father, after all.'

"Nat's wedding-present to me was a wood-carving of the 'One-Legged
Dancers'--the one which stands on the little gilt table. I shall never be
separated from it.

"When I first found out how very rich Robert was, I was afraid; it seemed
to me almost wrong to have so much money. But I hope we shall not grow
selfish. And I cannot but be grateful for it, when I see what it has done
for my darling brother. He is living now in a beautiful apartment in New
York. Patrick is with him, his devoted servant, and Miss Penstock has gone
to keep house for them. Nat is studying and working hard; the best artists
in the city are his friends, and his pictures are already known and
sought. When Robert first proposed this arrangement, Nat said, 'Oh no, no!
I cannot accept such a weight of obligation from any man, not even from a
brother.'

"Robert rose and knelt down by Nat's chair,