missing paper, ‘The One-Legged Dancers!’ Nat was right.  It was a pretty pattern, a very pretty pattern for a chintz; and there was—­I laughed out in spite of myself, as I stood in the crowd on the sidewalk—­yes, there was the ugly great knot in one of the trees which had made King Herod’s stomach.  But what did it mean?  No chintzes were made in any of Mr. Maynard’s mills, nor, so far as I knew, in any mill in that neighborhood.  I was hot with indignation.  Plainly Nat’s instinct had been a true one.  The Wilkinses had stolen the design and had sold it to some other manufacturers, not dreaming that the theft could ever be discovered by two such helpless children as Nat and I.

“I went into the shop and asked the price of the chintz in the window.

“’Oh, the grape-vine pattern? that is a new pattern, just out this spring; it is one of the most popular patterns we ever had.  A lovely thing, miss,’ said the clerk, as he lifted down another piece of it.

“‘I will take one yard,’ said I with a choking voice.  I was afraid I should cry in the shop.  ‘Do you know where this chintz is made?’ I added.

“The clerk glanced at the price-ticket and read me the name.  It was made by a firm I had never heard of, in another State.  No wonder the Wilkinses thought themselves safe.

“When I showed Nat the chintz he seemed much less excited than I expected.  He was not so very much surprised; and, to my great astonishment, he was not at first sure that it would be best to let the Wilkinses know that we had discovered their cheating.  But I was firm; I would have no more to do with them.  My impulse was to go to Mr. Maynard.  Although during these three years he had never come to see us, I felt sure that, in the bottom of his heart, there still was a strong affection for us; and, above all, he was a just man.  He would never keep in his employ for one day any person capable of such wrong as the Wilkinses had done us.

“‘But,’ persisted Nat, ’you do not know that either of the Mr. Wilkinses had anything to do with it.  They may both have honestly supposed it was lost.  It’s much more likely that their sister stole it.’

“I had not thought of this before.  Poor Miss Wilkins!  Nat’s artistic soul had been so outraged by some of her flagrant calicoes that he believed her capable of any crime.

“At last I consented to go first to the Wilkinses themselves, and I promised to speak very calmly and gently in the beginning, and betray no suspicion of them.  I carried the chintz.  When I entered the office, the overseer was talking in one corner with a gentleman whose back was turned to me.  The agent sat by the counter.

“‘Mr. Wilkins,’ said I, ’do you remember the grape-vine pattern my brother drew last winter—­the one which you refused?’

“The instant I spoke, I saw that he did remember.  I saw that he was guilty, and I saw it all with such certainty that it enabled me to be very calm.