“At this I grew angry, and I replied:—­

“’Mr. Maynard, Nat does more for us all, every hour of his life, than we ever could do for him:  dear papa used to say so too.’

“No doubt papa had said this very thing to Mr. Maynard often, for tears came into his eyes and he went on:—­

“’I know, I know—­he is a wonderful boy, and we might all learn a lesson of patience from him; but I can’t have the whole of your life sacrificed to him.  I will provide for him amply; he shall have every comfort which money can command.’

“‘But where?’ said I.

“‘In an institution I know of, under the charge of a friend of mine.’

“‘A hospital!’ exclaimed I; and the very thought of my poor Nat, who had been the centre of a loving home-circle, of a merry school playground, ever since he could remember—­the very thought of his finding himself alone among diseased people, and tended by hired attendants, so overcame me that I burst into floods of tears.

“Mr. Maynard, who hated the presence of tears and suffering, as mirthful people always do, rose at once and said kindly, ’Poor child, you are not strong enough to talk it over yet; but as your aunt must go away so soon, I thought it better to have it all settled at once.’

“‘It is settled, Mr. Maynard,’ said I, in a voice that half frightened me.  ‘I shall never leave Nat—­never, so long as I live.’

“‘Then you’ll do him the greatest unkindness you can—­that’s all,’ replied Mr. Maynard angrily, and walked out of the room.  I locked myself up in my own room and thought the whole matter over.  How I could earn my own living and Nat’s, I did not know.  We should have about four hundred dollars a year.  I had learned enough in my childhood of poverty to know that we need not starve while we had that; but simply not starving is a great way off from really living; and I felt convinced that it would be impossible for me to keep up courage or hope unless I could contrive, in some way, to earn money enough to surround our home with at least a semblance of the old atmosphere.  We must have books; we must have a flower sometimes; we must have sun and air.

“At last an inspiration came to me.  Down stairs, in the saddened empty study, sat little Miss Penstock, the village dressmaker, sewing on our gloomy black dresses.  She lived all alone in a very small house near Mr. Maynard’s mill.  I remembered that I had heard her say how lonely she found it living by herself since her married sister, who used to live with her, had gone to the West.  Since then, Miss Penstock had sometimes consented to go for a few days at a time to sew in the houses of her favorite employers, just to keep from forgetting how to speak,’ the poor little woman said.  But she disliked very much to do this.  She was a gentlewoman; and though she accepted with simple dignity the necessity of earning her bread, it was bitterly disagreeable to her to sit as a hired sewer in other people’s houses.