“‘Don’t you touch one!’ screamed Nat, lifting up his head again, with tears rolling down his cheeks.  ‘Dot, Dot,’ he went on, speaking louder and louder, ’don’t you see? those are patterns; Patrick says Mr. Wilkins buys them.  I can earn money too; I can draw a million times prettier ones than those.’

“Like lightning the thing flashed through my brain.  Of course he could.  He drew better ones every day of his life, by dozens, on the old blackboard, with crumbling bits of chalk.  Again and again I had racked my brains to devise some method by which he might be taught, as artists are taught, and learn to put his beautiful conceptions into true shapes for the world to see.  But I knew that materials and instruction were both alike out of our reach, and I had hoped earnestly that such longing had never entered his heart.  I sat down and covered my face with my hands.

“‘You see, sister,’ said Nat in a calmer tone, sobered himself by my excitement—­’you see, don’t you?’

“‘Yes, dear, I do see,’ said I; ’you will earn much more money than I ever can, and take care of me, after all.’

“To our inexperience, it seemed as if a mine had opened at our feet.  Poor Patrick stood still, unhappy and bewildered, twisting one of the pattern-books in his hand.

“‘An’ is it these same that Misther Nat’ll be afther tryin’ to make?’ said he.

“‘Oh no, Patrick,’ said Nat, laughing, ’only the pictures from which these are to be made.’

“Then we questioned Patrick more closely.  All he knew was that Mr. Wilkins’ sister made many of the drawings; Patrick had seen them lying in piles on Mr. Wilkins’ desk; some of them colored, some of them merely in ink.  The pieces of paper were about the size of these patterns, some six or eight inches square.

“‘Will I ask Miss Wilkins to come and show yees?’ said Patrick.

“‘No, no,’ said we both, hastily; ’you must not tell anybody.  Of course she would not want other people to be drawing them too.’

“‘Especially if she can’t make anything better than these,’ said Nat, pityingly.  Already his tone had so changed that I hardly recognized it.  In that moment the artist-soul of my darling brother had felt its first breath of the sweetness of creative power.

“Patrick promised not to speak of it to a human being; as he was going out of the door he turned back, with a radiant face, and said:  ’An ’twas meself that only thought maybe the calikers’d amuse him for a minnit with their quare colors,’ and he almost somerseted off the door-steps, uttering an Irish howl of delight.

“’You’ve made our fortunes! there’ll always be calicoes wanted, and I can draw fifty patterns a day, and I’ll give you half of the first pay I get for them,’ called the excited Nat; but Patrick was off.

“We sat up till midnight.  I was scarcely less overwrought than Nat.  He drew design after design and rejected them as not quite perfect.