“When he bade me good-by at my door, he said, ’I shall go now to find my father, and if he is at home the brothers Wilkins will be dismissed from our employ in less than one hour,’ I looked after him as long as I could see him.  Then I went into our little sitting-room, sank into a chair, and sat motionless, turning the check over and over in my hand, and wondering if I really were awake and alive, or if all were a dream.  In a few moments Nat came home.  As Patrick lifted the wagon up over the door-steps, and Nat caught sight 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.’