“Robert rose and knelt down by Nat’s chair, and even then he was so far above him he had to bend over.

“‘Nat,’ said he, in a low tone, ’I never knelt to any human being before:  I didn’t kneel to Dora when I asked her to give herself to me, for I was sure I could so give myself to her as to make her happy; but it is to you, after all, that I owe it that she is mine; I never can forget it for an hour, and I never can repay you—­no, not in my whole life-time, nor with all my fortune.’

“Then he told him that the sum which it would need to support him and Miss Penstock and Patrick in this way was so small, in comparison with our whole income, that it was not worth mentioning.  ‘And at any rate,’ he said, ’it is useless for you to remonstrate, Nat, for I have already made fifty thousand dollars’ worth of stock so entirely yours, that you cannot escape from it.  The papers are all in my father’s hands, and the income will be paid to you, or left subject to your order, quarterly.  If you do not spend it, nobody else will;’ and then Robert bent down lower, and lifting Nat’s thin hands tenderly in his, pressed them both against his check, in the way I often did.  It was one of the few caresses Nat loved.  I stood the other side of the chair, and I stooped down and kissed him, and said:—­

“‘And, Nat, I cannot be quite happy in any other way.’

“So Nat yielded.

“It was hard to come away and leave him.  For some time I clung to the hope that he might come with us; but the physicians all said it would be madness for him to run the risk of a sea-voyage.  However, I know that for him, the next best thing to seeing Europe himself is to see it through my eyes.  I write to him every week, and I shall carry home to him such art-treasures as he has never dreamed of possessing.

“Next year we shall go home, and then he will come back to Maynard’s Mills and live with us.  Robert is having a large studio built for him on the north side of the house, with a bed-room and little sitting-room opening out of it.  Miss Penstock, too, will always live with us; we shall call her ‘housekeeper,’ to keep her contented, and Patrick is to stay as Nat’s attendant.  Poor fellow, he is not quite full-witted, we think; but he loves Nat so devotedly that he makes a far better servant than a cleverer boy would with a shade less affection.

“And now you have heard the story of my life, dear friend,” said Dora, as she rose from the seat and lighted the rose-colored tapers in two low swinging Etruscan candlesticks just above our heads—­“all that I can tell you,” she added slowly.  “You will understand that I cannot speak about the happiest part of it.  But you have seen Robert.  The only thing that troubles me is that I have no sorrow.  It seems dangerous.  Dear Nat, although he has all he ever hoped for, need not fear being too happy, because he has the ever-present pain, to make him earnest and keep him ready for more pain.  I said so to him the day before I came away, and he gave me those verses I told you of, called ‘The Angel of Pain,’”