# Saxe Holm's Stories/The One-Legged Dancers
### THE ONE-LEGGED DANCERS.

VERY early one morning in March, ten years ago, I was sitting alone on one of the crumbling ledges of the Coliseum: larks were singing above my head; wall-flowers were waving at my feet; a procession of chanting monks was walking slowly around the great cross in the arena below. I was on the highest tier, and their voices reached me only as an indistinct wail, like the notes of a distant Æolian harp; but the joyous sun and sky and songs, were darkened and dulled by their presence. A strange sadness oppressed me, and I sank into a deep reverie. I do not know how long I had been sitting there, when I was suddenly roused by a cry of pain, or terror, and the noise of falling stones. I sprang to my feet and, looking over, saw a young and beautiful woman lying fearfully near the edge of one of the most insecure of the projecting ledges on the tier below me—the very one from which I had myself nearly fallen, only a few days before, in stretching over after some asphodels which were beyond my reach.
I ran down as fast as possible, but when I reached the spot she had fainted, and was utterly unconscious. She was alone; I could see no other human being in the Coliseum. The chanting monks had gone; even the beggars had not yet come. I tried in vain to rouse her. She had fallen so that the hot sun was beating full on her face. I dared not leave her there, for her first unconscious movement might be such that she would fall over the edge. But I saw that she must have shade and water, or die. Every instant she grew whiter and her lips looked more rigid. I shouted aloud, and only the echoes answered me, as if in mockery. A little lark suddenly flew out from a tuft of yellow wall-flower close by, and burst into a swift carol of delight as he soared away. At last, with great efforts, I succeeded in dragging her, by her feet—for I dared not venture out so far as the spot on which her head lay—to a safer place, and into the partial shade of a low bush. As I did this, one of her delicate hands was scratched and torn on the rough stones, and drops of blood came to the surface. In the other hand were crushed a few spikes of asphodel, the very flowers, no doubt, which had lured me so near the same dangerous brink. It seemed impossible to go away and leave her, but it was cruel to delay. My feet felt like lead as I ran along those dark galleries and down the stone flights of giddy stairs. Just in the entrance stood one of those pertinacious sellers of old coins and bits of marble. I threw down a piece of silver on his little stand, seized a small tin basin in which he had his choicest coins, emptied them on the ground, and saying, in my poor Italian, "Lady—ill—water," I had filled the basin at the old stone fountain near by, and was half way up the first flight of stairs again, before he knew what had happened.
When I reached the place where I had left the beautiful stranger she was not there. Unutterable horror seized me. Had I, after all, left her too near that crumbling edge? I groaned aloud and turned to run down. A feeble voice stopped me—a whisper rather than a voice, for there was hardly strength to speak,—
"Who is there?"
"Oh, thank God," I exclaimed, "you are not dead!" and I sprang to the next of the cross corridors, from which the sound had come.
She was there, sitting up, leaning against the wall. She looked almost more terrified than relieved when she saw me. I bathed her face and hands in the water, and told her how I had found her insensible, and had drawn her away from the outer edge before I had gone for the water. She did not speak for some moments, but looked at me earnestly and steadily, with tears standing in her large blue eyes.
Then she said, "I did not know that any one but myself ever came to the Coliseum so early. I thought I should die here alone; and Robert was not willing I should come."
"I owe you my life," she added, bursting into hysterical crying.
Then in a few moments she half laughed, as if at some droll thought, and said, "But how could you drag me? You are not nearly so big as I am. The angels must have helped you;" and holding up the poor crushed asphodels, she went on: "As soon as I came to myself, I saw the asphodels in my hand, and I said, 'Asphodel for burial;' and tried to throw them away, so that if Robert came he would not find me dead with them in my hand, for only yesterday he said to me, 'Please never pick an asphodel—I can't bear to see you touch one.'"
Slowly I soothed her and she recovered her color and strength. The owner of the basin, followed by a half-dozen chattering vetturini, had climbed up to us, but we had peremptorily sent them all away. It was evident that she was not seriously hurt. The terror, rather than the fall, had caused her fainting. It was probably a sudden dizziness which had come as she drew back and turned after picking the flowers. Had she fallen in the act of picking them she must have been dashed to the ground below. At the end of an hour she was so nearly well, that she walked slowly down the long stairs, leaning on my arm, and taking frequent rests by the way. I was about to beckon to one of the vetturini, when she said, "Oh no! my own carriage is near here, up by the gate of the Palace of the Cæsars. I rambled on, without thinking at first of coming to the Coliseum: it will do me good to walk back; every moment of the air makes me feel better."
So we went slowly on, up the solemn hill, arm in arm like friends, sitting down now and then on old fallen columns to rest, and looking back at the silent, majestic ruins, which were brightened almost into a look of life under the vivid sun. My companion spoke little; the reaction after her fearful shock had set in; but every few moments her beautiful eyes would fill with tears as she looked in my face and pressed my arm. I left her at her apartment on the Via Felice; my own was a mile farther on, in the Piazza del Popolo, and I would not let her drive so far.
"It grieves me not to go with you to your door," she said, as she bade me good-bye, "but I shall come and see you to-morrow and bring my husband."
"No, you must not," I replied. "To-morrow you will be wise enough—or, if you are not wise enough, you will be kind enough to me because I ask it—to lie in bed all day, and I shall come very early in the morning to see how you are."
She turned suddenly on the carriage-steps, and, leaning both her hands on my knees, exclaimed, in a voice full of emotion.
"Will you let me kiss you? Not even my mother gave me what you have given. For you have given me back life, when it was too infinitely precious to lose. Surely you will not think me presuming?" and her cheek flushed a little.
"Presuming! my dear child, I loved you the first moment I saw you lying there on the stones; and I am almost old enough to be your mother, too," I replied, and I kissed her sweet face warmly.
This was the beginning of my acquaintance and friendship with Dora Maynard.
At eleven o'clock the next morning I went to see her. I was shown into a room, whose whole air was so unlike that of a Roman apartment, that I could scarcely believe I had not been transported to English or American soil. In spite of its elegance, the room was as home-like and cozy as if it nestled in the Berkshire hills or stood on Worcestershire meadows. The windows were heavily curtained, and the furniture covered with gay chintz of a white ground, with moss-rose buds thickly scattered over it between broad stripes of rose-pink. The same chintz was fluted all around the cornice of the room, making the walls look less high and stately; the doorways, also, were curtained with it. Great wreaths and nodding masses of pampas grass were above the doors; a white heron and a rose-colored spoonbill stood together on a large bracket in one corner, and a huge gray owl was perched on what looked like a simple old apple-tree bough, over an inlaid writing-table which stood at an odd slant near one of the windows. Books were everywhere—in low swinging shelves, suspended by large green cords with heavy tassels; on low bracket shelves, in unexpected places, with deep green fringes or flutings of the chintz; in piles on Moorish stools or old Venice chests. Every corner looked as if somebody made it a special haunt and had just gone out. On a round mosaic table stood an exqusite black-and-gilt Etruscan patera filled with white anemones; on another table near by stood a silver one filled with the same flowers, pink and yellow. Each was circled round the edge with fringing masses of maiden-hair fern. Every lounge and chair had a low, broad foot-stool before it, ruffled with the chintz; and in one corner of the room were a square pink and white and green Moorish rug, with ten or a dozen chintz-covered pillows, piled up in a sort of chair-shaped bed upon it, and a fantastic ebony box standing near, the lid thrown back, and battledoors and shuttlecocks, and many other gay-colored games, tossed in confusion. The walls were literally full of exquisite pictures; no very large or rare ones, all good for every-day living; some fine old etchings, exquisite water-colors, a swarthy Campagna herds-boy with a peacock feather and a scarlet ribbon in his black hat, and for a companion-picture, the herds-boy of the mountains, fair, rosy, standing out on a opaline snow-peak, with a glistening Edelweiss in his hand; opposite these a large picture of Haag's, a camel in the desert, the Arab wife and baby in a fluttering mass of basket and fringe and shawl and scarf, on his back; the Arab father walking a few steps in advance, playing on musical pipes, his tasseled robe blowing back in the wind; on one side of this a Venice front, and on another a crag of Norway pines; here and there, small leaves of photographs from original drawings by the old masters, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian, and Luini; and everywhere, in all possible and impossible places, flowers and vines. I never saw walls so decorated. Yellow wall-flowers waved above the picture of the Norway pines; great scarlet thistles branched out each side of the Venetian palace; cool maiden-hair ferns seemed to be growing all around the glowing crimson and yellow picture of the Arabs in the Desert. Afterward I learned the secret of this beautiful effect; large, flat, wide-mouthed bottles, filled with water, were hung on the backs of the picture frames, and in these the vines and flowers were growing; only a worshipper of flowers would have devised this simple method of at once enshrining them, and adorning the pictures.
In one of the windows stood a superbly-carved gilt table, oblong, and with curiously-twisted legs which bent inward and met a small central shelf half-way between the top and the floor, then spread out again into four strange claw-like vases, which bore each two golden lilies standing upright. On this stood the most singular piece of wood-carving I ever saw. It was of very light wood, almost yellow in tint; it looked like rough vine trellises with vines clambering over them; its base was surrounded by a thick bed of purple anemones; the smaller shelf below was also filled with purple anemones, and each of the golden lilies held all the purple anemones it could—not a shade of any other color but the purple and gold—and rising above them the odd vine trellises in the pale yellow wood. As I stood looking at this in mute wonder and delight, but sorely perplexed to make out the design of the carving, I heard a step behind me. I turned and saw, not my new friend, as I had expected, but her husband. I thought, in that first instant, I had never seen a manlier face and form, and I think so to-day. Robert Maynard was not tall; he was not handsome; but he had a lithe figure, square-shouldered, straight, strong, vitalized to the last fibre with the swift currents of absolutely healthy blood, and the still swifter currents of a passionate and pure manhood. His eyes were blue, his hair and full beard of the bright-brown yellow which we call, rightly or wrongly, Saxon. He came very quickly toward me with both hands outstretched and began to speak. "My dear madam," he said, but his voice broke, and with a sudden, uncontrollable impulse, he turned his back full upon me for a second, and passed his right hand over his eyes. The next instant he recovered himself and went on.
"I do not believe you will wonder that I can't speak, and I do not believe you will ever wonder that I do not thank you—I never shall," and he raised both my hands to his lips.
"Dora is in bed as you bade her to be," he continued. "She is well, but very weak. She wants to see you immediately, and she has forbidden me to come back to her room without you. I think, perhaps," he added hesitatingly, "she is not quite calm enough to talk long. Forgive me for saying it. I know you love her already."
"Indeed I do," replied I, "as if I had known her all my life. I will not stay long;" and I followed him through a small dining-room, also gay with flowers and vines, to a little room which had one side almost wholly of glass and opened on a loggia full of orange-trees and oleanders, geraniums and roses. I will not describe Dora Maynard's bed-room. It was the dainty room of a dainty woman, but spiritualized and individualized and made wonderful, just as her sitting-room was, by a creative touch and a magnetic presence such as few women possess. I believe that she could not be for twenty-four hours in the barrenest and ugliest room possible, without contriving to diffuse a certain enchantment through all its emptiness.
She looked far more beautiful this morning than she had looked the day before. I never forgot the picture of her face as I saw it then, lying on the white pillow and turned toward the door, with the eager expression which her waiting for me had given it. Neither of us spoke for some seconds, and when we did speak we took refuge in commonplaces. Our hearts were too full—mine with a sudden and hardly explicable overflow of affection toward this beautiful being whom I had saved from dying; hers with a like affection for me, heightened a thousand fold by the intense love of love and of living that filled her whole soul and made her gratitude to me partake almost of the nature of adoration. I think it was years before she could see me without recalling the whole scene so vividly that tears would fill her eyes. Often she would suddenly seize both my hands in hers, kiss them and say, "Oh! but for these dear, strong, brave little hands, where should I be!" And whenever we parted for a length of time she was overshadowed by presentiment. "I know it is superstitious and silly," she would say, "but I cannot shake off the feeling that I am safer in the same town with you. I believe if any harm were to threaten me you would be near."
But the story I am to tell now is not the story of Dora Maynard's life after I knew her, nor of our friendship and love for each other, rare and beautiful as they were. It is the story of her girlhood, and of the strange wood-carving which stood on the gilded table in the bed of purple anemones.
One morning in April, as I climbed the long stone stairs which led to her apartment, I met Anita, the flower-woman who carried flowers to her every day. Anita looked troubled.
"What is the matter, my Anita?" said I; "is the Signora ill?"
"Ah no, thank the Blessed Virgin!" said Anita; "the dearest, most beautiful of Signoras is well, but I am obliged to tell her to-day that there are no more anemones. Biagio went yesterday to the farthest corner of the Villa Doria, to a dark shady spot beyond the Dove-Cote, which the strangers know not, hoping to find some; but the heavy rains had beaten them all down—there is no longer one left. And the Signora had tears in her eyes when I told her; and she did not care for all the other beautiful flowers; she said none of them could go on the gold table; never yet has the Signora put any flowers on the gold table except the purple anemones," and real tears stood in old Anita's eyes.
"Why, Anita," said I, "I am sure some other flowers would look very pretty there. I do not believe the Signora will be unhappy about it."
Anita shook her head and half smiled with a look of pitying compassion.
"But, Signora, you do not know; that dearest and most beautiful of Signoras has visions from the angels about her flowers. Holy Virgin! if she would but come and hang flowers around the Bambino in our church! None of the Holy Sisters can so weave them as she does; she makes Festa forever in the house for the Signor; and I think, Signora," crossing herself and looking sharply at me, "perhaps the gold table is the shrine of her religion: does the Signora know?"
I could not help laughing. "Oh no, Anita," I said; "we do not have shrines in our religion."
Anita's face clouded. "Iddio mio!" she said, "but the Virgin will keep the dearest Signora Maynardi. Biagio and I have vowed to keep a candle always burning for her in Ara Cœli! The dearest, most beautiful of Signoras;" and Anita walked disconsolately on, down the stairs.
I found Dora kneeling before the "gold table," arranging great masses of maiden-hair fern around the wood carving and in the shelf below. As I saw the rapt and ecstatic expression of her face, I understood why Anita had believed the gold table to be a shrine.
"They do not suit it like the anemones," said she, sadly; "and I can have no more anemones this year."
"So poor Anita told me just now on the stairs," replied I. "She was almost crying, she was so sorry she could not get them for you. But I am sure, dear, the ferns are beautiful on it. I think the pale green looks even better than the purple with the gold and the pale yellow wood."
"I like the purple best," said Dora; "besides, we always had purple at home," and her eyes filled with tears. Then, turning suddenly to me, she said, "Why have you never asked me what this is? I know you must have wondered: it looks so strange—this poor little clumsy bit of American pine, on my gilt table shrined with flowers!"
"Yes, I have wondered, I acknowledge, for I could not make out the design," I replied; "but I thought it might have some story connected with it, which you would tell me if you wished I should know. I did not think it clumsy; I think it is fantastic, and has a certain sort of weird life-likeness about it."
"Do you really think it has any life-like look about it?" and Dora's face flushed with pleasure. "I think so, but I supposed nobody else could see anything in it. No one of my acquaintance has ever alluded to it," continued she, half laughing, half crying, "but I see them trying to scrutinize it slyly when they are not observed. As for poor old Anita, I believe she thinks it is our Fetish. She walks round it on tiptoe with her hands clasped on her apron."
"But now," she continued, "I will show you the same design in something else;" and she led the way through her own bedroom to Robert's, which was beyond. On the threshold she paused, and kissing me, said: "If you can stay with me to-day, I will tell you the whole story, dear; but I want you to look at this chintz first." Then she walked to the window, and drawing out one of the curtains to its full width, held it up for me to see. It was a green and white chintz, evidently of cheap quality. At first I did not distinguish any meaning in the pattern; presently I saw that the figures were all of vines and vine-leaves, linked in a fantastic fashion together, like those in the wood-carving on the gold table.
"Oh, yes," I said, "I see; it is exactly like the carving, only it looks different, being on a flat surface."
Dora did not speak; she was gazing absently at the chintz she held in her hand. Her face looked as if her soul were miles and years away. Presently I saw a tear roll down her cheek. I touched her hand. She started, and smiling sweetly, said: "Oh! forgive me. Don't think I am crying for any sorrow; it is for joy. I am so happy, and my life has been so wonderful. Now would you really have patience to listen to a long story?" she said, beseechingly; "a long story all about me—and—Robert? I have been wanting to tell you ever since I knew you. I think you ought to know all about us."
For my answer, I sank into a large chair, drew her down into my lap, and said: "Begin, you dearest child. Nothing could give me such pleasure. Begin at the beginning."
She slipped from my lap to a low footstool at my feet, and resting both her arms on my knees in a graceful way she had, looked up into my face, and began by a sentence which made me start.
"I used to work in a factory." My start was so undisguised, so uncontrollable, that Dora drew back and her cheeks turned red.
"Perhaps I ought to have told you before."
"Oh, my dear, beautiful, marvellous child!" I exclaimed; "you cannot so misjudge me. I was startled only because you had always seemed to me so much like one born to all possible luxury. I supposed you had been nurtured on beauty."
"So I have been," she replied, earnestly, smiling through tears; "nevertheless, three years ago I was working in a factory in America."
I did not interrupt her again; hour after hour passed by; not until twilight was deepening into dusk did the story come to end. I shall try to give it in Dora's own words—their simplicity adds so much to it; but I cannot give the heightened effect with which they fell upon my ears as I looked down into her sweet child-woman's face.
"I do not remember much about mamma. It is strange, too, that I do not, because I was thirteen when she died; but I always loved papa best, and stayed all the time I could in his study. Mamma was very pretty; the prettiest woman I ever saw; but I don't know how it was, all her prettiness did not seem to make papa care about her. He was a clergyman—an Episcopal clergyman—and his father and his father's father had been too; so you see for three whole generations it had been all books and study in the family; but mamma's father was a farmer, and mamma was stronger than papa; she liked to live in the country and be out of doors, which he hated. I think I know now just how it all was; but it used to puzzle me till I grew up. When I was sixteen, my Aunt Abby, papa's sister, told me that mamma was said to be the most beautiful girl in the whole State, and that papa fell so in love with her when he was just out of college, that he came very near dying because his father did not wish them to be married. Poor papa! it was just so always with him; he had such a poor feeble body that any trouble or worry made him ill. I can see now that it was because he and all his family had been such scholars, and lived in the house, and sat still all their lives; their bodies were not good for anything: and I am thankful enough that my body is like mamma's; but I don't know what good it would do me, either, if dear papa hadn't taught me all his ways of seeing things and feeling things. Mamma never seemed to care much about anything, except when Dick or Abby were sick, and she always used to go to sleep in church while papa was saying the most beautiful things; sometimes it used to make me almost hate her. I hated everybody that didn't listen to him. But Aunt Abby said once that very few people could understand him, and that was the reason we never stayed long in one place. People got tired of hearing him preach. This made me so angry I did not speak to Aunt Abby for two years, except when I was obliged to. But I see now that she was right. As I read over papa's sermons I see that they would seem very strange to common men and women. He saw much more in every little thing than people generally do. I used to tell him sometimes he 'saw double,' and he would sigh and say that the world was blind, and did not see half; he never could take any minute by itself; there was the past to cripple it and the future to shadow it. Poor, poor papa! I really think I have learned in a very strange way to understand his capacity for sadness. I understand it by my own capacity for joy. I often smile to think how I used to accuse him of seeing double, for it is the very thing which Robert says to me again and again when a sight or a sound gives me such intense pleasure that I can hardly bear it. And I see that while I have nearly the same sensitiveness to all impressions from things or from people which he had, my body compels the impressions to be joyous. This is what I owe mamma. If papa could have been well and strong, he would have sung joy such as no poet has ever sung since suns began to shine.
"But most that he wrote was sad; and I am afraid most that he taught the people was sad too, or, at any rate, not hopeful as it ought to be in this beautiful, blessed world, which 'God so loved' and loves. So perhaps it was better for people that papa never preached in any one parish more than three or four years. Probably God took care to send next a man who would make everybody take courage again. However, it was very hard for mamma, and very hard for us; although for us there was excitement and fun in getting into new houses and getting acquainted with new people; but the worst thing was that we had very little money, and it used it up so to move from place to place, and buy new things. I knew all about this before I was ten years old as well as if I had been forty; and by the time I was twelve, I was a perfect little miser of both clothes and money—I had such a horror of the terrible days, which sometimes came, when we sorely wanted both.
"Early in the spring after I was thirteen—my birthday was in December—we went to live in a little place called Maynard's Mills. It was a suburban village near the largest manufacturing town in the State. The other two homes which I could remember had been very small country villages, where none of the people were rich, and only a few attended the Episcopal church. In Maynard's Mills there were many rich people, and almost everybody went to our church. The whole place was owned by Mr. Maynard, Robert's father. He had gone out there to live near his mills, and the place was so beautiful that family after family of the rich mill-owners had moved out there. At first they used to go into town to church; but it was a long drive, cold in winter and hot in summer, and so Mr. Maynard built a beautiful chapel near his house and sent for papa to come and preach in it. Mr. Maynard had been his classmate in college and loved him very much, just because they were 'so different,' papa said, and I think it must have been so, for Mr. Maynard is the merriest man I ever saw. He laughs as soon as he sees you, whether there is anything to laugh at or not, and he makes you feel just like laughing yourself, simply by asking you how you do. I never saw papa so happy as he was the day Mr. Maynard's letter came asking him to go there.
"It was a very kind letter, and the salary, of which Mr. Maynard spoke almost apologetically, saying that it would be increased in a few years as the village grew, was more than twice as large as papa had ever received, and there was a nice parsonage besides.
"We moved in April. I always associate our moving with blue hepaticas, for I carried a great basketful of them, which I had taken up roots and all, in the woods, the morning we set out; and what should I find under papa's study window but a great thicket of wild ferns and cornel bushes growing—just the place for my hepaticas, and I set them out before I went into the house. The house was very small, but it was so pretty that papa and I were perfectly happy in it. Poor mamma did not like the closets and the kitchen. The house we had left was a huge, old-fashioned house, with four square rooms on a floor; one of these was the kitchen, and mamma missed it very much. But she lived only a few days after we moved in. I never knew of what disease she died. She was ill but a few hours and suffered great pain. They said she had injured herself in some way in lifting the furniture. It was all so sudden and so terrible, and we were surrounded by such confusion and so many strange faces, that I do not remember anything about it distinctly. I remember the funeral, and the great masses of white and purple flowers all over the table on which the coffin stood, and I remember how strangely papa's face looked.
"And then Aunt Abby came to live with us, and we settled down into such a new, different life, that it seemed to me as if it had been in some other world that I had known mamma. My sister Abby was two years old, and my darling brother Nat was ten, when mamma died. It is very hard to talk about dear Nat, I love him so. He is so precious, and his sorrow is so sacred, that I am hardly willing to let strangers pity him, ever so tenderly. When he was a baby he sprang out of mamma's lap, one day, as she was reaching up to take something from the mantel piece. He fell on the andiron-head and injured his spine so that he could never walk. He is twenty years old now; his head and chest and arms are about as large as those of a boy of sixteen, but all the rest of his poor body is shrunken and withered; he has never stood upright, and he cannot turn himself in his chair or bed. But his head and face are beautiful. It is not only I who think so. Artists have seen him sitting at the window, or being drawn about in his little wagon, and have begged permission to paint his face, for the face of a saint or of a hero, in their pictures. It is the face of both saint and hero; and after all that must be always so, I think; for how could a man be one without being the other? I know some very brave men have been very bad men, but I do not call them heroes. Nat is the only hero I ever knew; if I were a poet I would write a poem about him. It should be called 'The Crownless King.' Oh, how he does reign over suffering, and loss, and humiliation, and what a sweet kingdom spreads out around him wherever he is! He does everybody good, and everybody loves him. Poor papa used to say sometimes, 'My son is a far better preacher than I; see, I sit at his feet to learn;' and it was true. Even when he was a little fellow Nat used to keep up papa's courage. Many a time, when papa looked dark and sad, Nat would call to him, 'Dear papa, will you carry me up and down a little while by the window? I want the sky.' Then, while they were walking, Nat would say such sweet things about the beauty of the sky, and the delight it gave him to see it, that the tears would come into papa's eyes, and he would say, 'Who would think that we could ever forget for a moment this sky which is above us?' and he would go away to his study comforted.
"As I said, when mamma died, Nat was ten and I was thirteen. From that time I took all the care of him. Aunt Abby, was not strong, and she did not love children. She was just, and she meant to be always kind to us; but that sort of kindness is quite different from loving-kindness. Poor Nat never could bear to have her do anything for him, and so it very soon came about that I took all the care of him. It was not hard, for he was never ill; he suffered constant pain but in spite of it he was always cheerful, always said he felt well, and never had any of the small ailments and diseases which healthy children are apt to have. 'I shouldn't know what to do without the ache, Dot,' he said to me one day when he was only twelve years old. 'I've got so used to it, I should miss it as much as I should miss you said it helps me to be good. I don't think I should dare have it go away.' A few years later he wrote some lovely little verses called 'The Angel of Pain,' which I will show you. Our life after mamma died was very happy and peaceful. It makes me grieve for her, even now, to think how little she was missed. We had all loved her. She was always pleasant and good, and took the best possible care of us and of everything; but she was not one of those persons whose presence makes itself necessary to people. It seems hardly right to say such a thing, but I really think papa seemed more cheerful without her, after the first. I think that while she lived he was always groping and reaching after something in her which did not exist. The hourly sight of her reminded him hourly of his ideal of what a wife might be, and he was forever hoping that she might come a little nearer to it—enter a little more into his world of thought and feeling. This is how it has looked to me since I have been married, and can understand just how terrible it must be to have the person whom you love best, disappoint you in any way.
"Nat was in all my classes in school. Although he was three years younger he was much cleverer than I, and had had nothing to do, poor dear, all his life, but lie in his chair and read. I used to draw him to and from school in a little wagon; the boys lifted it up and down the steps so carefully it did not jar him; and papa had a special desk built for him, so high that part of the wagon could roll under it, and the lid could rest just wherever Nat needed it for writing or studying. When we went home, there was always a sort of procession with us; a good many of the children had to go in the same direction, but many went simply to walk by Nat's wagon and talk with him. Whenever there was a picnic or a nutting frolic, we always took him; the boys took turns in drawing him; nobody would hear a word of his staying at home; he used to sit in his wagon and look on while the rest played, and sometimes he would be left all alone for a while, but his face was always the happiest one there. At school the boys used to tell him everything, and leave things to his decision. Almost every day, somebody would call out, at recess or intermission, 'Well, I'll leave it to Nat'—or 'I'll tell Nat.' One day somebody shouted, 'Take it before the king—let's call him King Nat.' But it almost made Nat cry. He exclaimed, 'Oh, boys, please don't ever say that again;' and they never did. He had a great deal more influence over them than any teacher. He could make them do anything. Sometimes the teachers themselves used to come to him privately and tell him of things they did not like, which the boys were getting into the way of doing, and ask him to try to stop them. If Nat had not been a saint, as I said before, all this would have spoiled him; but he never thought of its being any special power in him. He used to think it was only because the boys were so kind-hearted that they could not bear to refuse any request which a poor cripple made.
"When I think how happy those days were and how fast the darkest days of our lives were drawing near, it makes me shrink from happiness almost as much as from grief. It seems only grief's forerunner. On the evening of my sixteenth birthday, we were all having a very merry time in papa's study, popping corn over the open fire. We had wheeled Nat near the fire, and tied the corn-popper on a broom-handle, so that he could shake the popper himself; and I never saw him laugh so heartily at anything. Papa laughed too, quite loud, which was a thing that did not happen many times a year. It was the last time we heard the full sound of dear papa's voice. Late that night he was called out to see a poor man, one of the factory operatives, who was dying. It was a terrible snow-storm, and papa had been so heated over the fire and in playing with us that he took a severe cold. The next morning he could not speak aloud. The doctor said it was an acute bronchitis and would pass off; but it did not, and in a very few weeks it was clear that he was dying of consumption. Probably the cold only developed a disease which had been long there.
"I can't tell you about the last months of papa's life. I think I shall never be able to speak of them. We saw much worse days afterward, but none that seemed to me so hard to bear; even when I thought Nat and I would have to go to the almshouse it was not so hard. The love which most children divide between father and mother I concentrated on my father. I loved him with an adoration akin to that which a woman feels for her husband, and with the utmost of filial love added. Nat loved him almost as much. The most touching thing I ever saw was to see Nat from his wagon, or wheeled chair, reaching out to take care of papa in the bed. Nobody else could give him his medicine so well; nobody could prepare his meals for him, after he was too weak to use a knife and fork, so well as Nat. How he could do all this with only one hand—for he could not bend himself in his chair enough to use the hand farthest from the bed—nobody could understand; but he did, and the very last mouthful of wine papa swallowed he took, the morning he died, from poor Nat's brave little hand, which did not shake nor falter, though the tears were rolling down his cheeks.
"Papa lived nearly a year; but the last nine months he was in bed, and he never spoke a loud word after that birthday night when we had been so happy in the study. He died in November, on a dreary stormy day. I never shall forget it. He had seemed easier that morning, and insisted on our all going out to breakfast together and leaving him alone, the doors being open between the study and the dining-room. We had hardly seated ourselves at the table when his bell rang. Aunt Abby reached him first. It could not have been a minute, but he did not know her. For the first and only time in my life I forgot Nat, and was out of the room when I heard him sob. Dear Nat! not even then would he think of himself. I turned back. 'Oh, don't stop to take me, Dot,' he said. 'Run!' But I could not; and when I reached the door, pushing his chair before me, all was over. However, the doctor said that, even if we had been there at the first, papa could not have bid us good-by; that the death was from instantaneous suffocation, and that he probably had no consciousness of it himself. Papa's life had been insured for five thousand dollars and he had saved, during the three years we had lived at Maynard's Mills, about one thousand more. This was all the money we had in the world.
"Mr. Maynard had been very kind throughout papa's illness. He had persuaded the church to continue the salary; every day he had sent flowers, and grapes, and wine, and game, and everything he could think of that papa could eat; and, what was kindest of all, he had come almost every day to talk with him and cheer him up. But he did not mean to let his kindness stop here. The day after the funeral he came to see us, to propose to adopt me. I forgot to say that Aunt Abby was to be married soon and would take little Abby with her; so they were provided for, and the only question was about Nat and me.
"Fortunately, dear Nat was in the dining-room and did not see Mr. Maynard when he came. I have told you what a merry man Mr. Maynard is, and how kind he is, but he is also a very obstinate and high-tempered man. He had never loved Nat; I do not know why; I think he was the only human being who ever failed to love him. He pitied him, of course; but he was so repelled by his deformity that he could not love him. As soon as Mr. Maynard said, 'Now, my dear child, you must come to my house and make it your home always,' I saw that he intended to separate me from Nat.
"I replied, 'I cannot leave Nat, Mr. Maynard. I thank you very much; you are very good; but it would break my heart to leave him, and I am sure papa would never forgive me if I should do it.'
"He made a gesture of impatience. He had foreseen this, and come prepared for it; but he saw that I promised to prove even more impracticable than he had feared.
"'You have sacrificed your whole life already to that miserable unfortunate boy,' he said, 'and I always told your father he ought not to permit it.'
"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. She liked to come to our house better than to any other. We also were poor. My Aunt Abby was a woman of great simplicity, and a quiet, stately humility, like Miss Penstock's own; and they enjoyed sitting side by side whole days, sewing in silence. Miss Penstock had always spoken with a certain sort of tender reverence to Nat, and I remembered that he liked to be in the room where she sewed. All these thoughts passed through my mind in a moment. I sprang to my feet and exclaimed, 'That is it—that is it!' and I ran hastily down to the study. Miss Penstock was alone there. She looked up in surprise at my breathlessness and my red eyes. I knelt down by her side and took the work out of her hands.
"'Dear Miss Penstock,' said I, 'would you rent part of your house?'
"She looked up reflectively, took off her spectacles with her left hand, and tapped her knees slowly with them, as she always did when puzzling over a scanty pattern.
"'I don't know, Dora, but I might; I've thought of it; it's awful lonely for me as 'tis. But it's such a risk taking in strangers; is it any friends of yours you're thinking of?'
"'Nat and me,' said I, concisely. Miss Penstock's spectacles dropped from her fingers, and she uttered an ejaculation I never heard from her lips on any other occasion. 'Good Heavens!'
"'Yes,' said I, beginning to cry, 'Nat and me! I've got to take care of Nat, and if you would only let us live with you I think I could manage beautifully.' Then I told her the whole story of Mr. Maynard's proposal. While we were talking Aunt Abby came in. The problem was no new one to her. Papa and she had talked it over many a time in the course of the past sad year. It seemed that he had had to the last a strong hope that Mr. Maynard would provide for us both. Poor papa! as he drew near the next world, all the conventionalities and obligations of this seemed so small to him, he did not shrink from the thought of dependence upon others as he would have done in health.
"'But I always told him,' said Aunt Abby, 'that Mr. Maynard wasn't going to do anything for Nat beyond what money'd do. He'd give him a thousand a year, or two, if need be, but he'd never set eyes on him if he could help it.'
"'Aunt Abby,' exclaimed I, 'please don't say another word about Mr. Maynard's helping Nat. I'd die before Nat should touch a cent of his money.'
"'There is no use talking that way,' said Aunt Abby, whose tenderest mercies were often cruelly worded. 'Mr. Maynard's a good, generous man, and I'm sure he's been the saving of us all. But that's no reason he should set up to take you away from Nat now; and I know well enough Nat can't live without you; but I don't see how it's to be managed. And Aunt Abby sighed. Then I told her my plans; they grew clearer and clearer to me as I unfolded them; the two gentle-faced spinster women looked at me with surprise. Miss Penstock wiped her eyes over and over.
"'If I could only be sure I wasn't going against your best interests to let you come,' said she.
"'Oh, Miss Penstock,' exclaimed I, 'don't think so—don't dare to say no for that reason; for I tell you, I shall go away to some other town with Nat if you don't take us; there is no other house here that would do; think how much better it would be for Nat to stay among friends.'
"'It's lucky I am their guardian,' said Aunt Abby, with an unconscious defiance in her tone. 'There can't anybody hinder their doing anything I am willing to have them do. My brother wanted to have Mr. Maynard, too; but I told him no; I'd either be whole guardian or none.'
"'I think good Aunt Abby had had a dim foreboding that Mr. Maynard's kindness might take a shape which it would be hard to submit to. Great as her gratitude was, her family pride resented dictation, and resented also the implied slight to poor Nat. As I look back now, I can see that, except for this reaction of feeling, she never would have consented so easily to my undertaking all I undertook, in going to housekeeping alone with that helpless child, on four hundred dollars a year. Before night it was all settled, and Miss Penstock went home two hours before her time, 'so stirred up, somehow,' as she said, 'to think of those blessed children's coming to live in my house, I couldn't see to thread a needle.' After tea Mr. Maynard came again: Aunt Abby saw him alone. When she came up-stairs she had been crying, but her lips were closed more rigidly than I ever saw them. Aunt Abby could be as determined as Mr. Maynard. All she said to me of the interview was, 'I don't know now as he'll really give in that he can't have things as he wants to. For all his laughing and for all his goodness, I don't believe he is any too comfortable to live with. I shouldn't wonder if he never spoke to one of us again.'
"But Mr. Maynard was too well-bred a man for any such pettiness as that. His resentment showed itself merely in a greater courtesy than ever, combined with a careful absence of all inquiries as to our plans. It hurt me very much, for I knew how it would have hurt dear papa. But I knew, too, that I was right and Mr. Maynard was wrong, and that comforted me.
"Four weeks from the day papa was buried, the pretty parsonage was locked up, cold, dark, empty. Aunt Abby had gone with little Abby to her new home, and Nat and I were settled at Miss Penstock's. The night before we moved, Mr. Maynard left a note at the door for me. It contained five hundred dollars and these words:—
"'Miss Dora will not refuse to accept this from one who hoped to be her father.'
"But I could not take it. I sent it back to him with a note like this:—
"'{[sc|Dear Mr. Maynard}}:—I shall never forget that you were willing to be my father, and I shall always be grateful to you; but I cannot take money from one who is displeased with me for doing what I think right. I promise you, however, for papa's sake and for Nat's, that if I ever need help I will ask it of you, and not of any one else.'
"The next time I saw Mr. Maynard he put both his hands on my shoulders and said: 'You are a brave girl; I wish I could forgive you; but remember your promise.' And that was the last word Mr. Maynard spoke to me for three years.
"Our new home was so much pleasanter than we supposed it could be, that at first, in spite of our grief, both Nat and I were almost gay. It was like a sort of picnic, or playing at housekeeping. The rooms were sunny and cozy. Rich people in splendid houses do not dream how pleasant poor people's little rooms can be, if the sun shines in and there are a few pretty things. We kept all the books which could ever be of use to Nat, and a picture of the Sistine Madonna which Mr. Maynard had given us on the last Christmas Day, and papa's and mamma's portraits. The books, and these, made our little sitting-room look like home. We had only two rooms on the first floor; one of these was a tiny one, but it held our little cooking-stove and a cupboard, with our few dishes; the other we called 'sitting-room;' it had to be dear Nat's bedroom also, because he could not be carried up and down stairs. But I made a chintz curtain, which shut off his bed from sight, and really made the room look prettier, for I put it across a corner and had a shelf put up above it, on which Nat's stuffed owl sat. My room was over Nat's, and a cord went up from his bed to a bell over mine, so that he could call me at any moment if he wanted anything in the night. Then we had one more little chamber, in which we kept the boxes of papa's sermons, and some trunks of old clothes, and things which nobody wanted to buy at the auction, and papa's big chair and writing-table. We would not sell those. I thought perhaps some day we should have a house of our own—I could not imagine how; but if we did we should be glad of that chair and table, and so Aunt Abby let us keep them, though they were of handsome wood, beautifully carved, and would have brought a good deal of money. For these four rooms we paid Miss Penstock three dollars a month; the rent would have been a dollar a week, but she said it was really worth a dollar a month to her to have people who would not trouble her nor hurt the house; and as Aunt Abby thought so too, I believed her.
"My plan was to have Nat keep on at school, and to take in sewing myself, or to work for Miss Penstock. For the first year all went so smoothly that I was content. I used to draw Nat to and from school twice a day, and that gave me air and exercise. Everybody was very kind in giving me sewing, and I earned four and five dollars a week. We did not have to buy any clothes, and so we laid up a little money. But the next year people did not give me so much sewing; they had given it to me the first year because they were sorry for us, but now they had forgotten. Very often I would sit idle a whole week, with no work. Then I used to read and study, but I could not enjoy anything, because I was so worried. I felt that trouble was coming. Early in the fall dear Nat was taken ill—the first illness of his life. It was a slow fever. He was ill for three months. I often wonder how I lived through those months. When he recovered he seemed better than ever. The doctor said he had passed a sort of crisis and would always be stronger for it. The doctor was very kind. Several nights he sat up with Nat and made me go to bed, and he would not let me pay him a cent, though he came every day for weeks. When I urged him to let us pay the bill he grew half angry, and said, 'Do you think I am going to take money from your father's daughter?' and then I felt more willing to take it for papa's sake. But the medicines had cost a great deal, and I had not earned anything; and so, at the end of the second year, we had been obliged to take quite a sum out of our little capital. I did not tell Nat, and I did not go to Mr. Maynard. I went on from day to day, in a sort of stupor, wondering what would happen next. I was seventeen years old, but I knew of nothing I could do except to sew; I did not know enough to teach. All this time I never once thought of the mills. I used to watch the men and women going in and out, and envy them, thinking how sure they were of their wages; and yet it never crossed my mind that I could do the same thing. I am afraid it was unconscious pride which prevented my thinking of it.
"But the day came. It was in the early spring. I had been to the grave-yard to set out some fresh hepaticas on papa's grave. His grave and mamma's were in an inclosure surrounded by a high, thick hedge of pines and cedars close to the public street As I knelt down, hidden behind the trees, I heard steps and voices. They paused opposite me. The persons were evidently looking over the fence. Then I distinguished the voice of our kind doctor.
"'Poor Kent!' he said, 'how it would distress him to see his children now! That Nat barely pulled through his fever; but he seems to have taken a new turn since then and is stronger than ever. But I am afraid they are very poor.'
"To my astonishment, the voice that replied was Mr. Maynard's.
"'Of course they are,' said he impatiently; 'but nobody will ever have a chance to help them till the last cent's gone. That Dora would work her fingers off in the mills rather than ask or receive help.'
"'But good heavens! Maynard, you'd never stand by and see Tom Kent's daughter in the mills?' exclaimed the doctor.
"I could not hear the reply, for they were walking away. But the words 'in the mills' rang in my ears. A new world seemed opening before me. I had no particle of false pride; all I wanted was to earn money honestly. I could not understand why I had never thought of this way. I knew that many of the factory operatives, who were industrious and economical, supported large families of children on their wages. 'It would be strange enough if I could not support Nat and myself,' thought I, and I almost ran home, I was so glad. I said nothing to Nat; I knew instinctively that it would grieve him.
"The next day after I left him at school I went to the largest mill and saw the overseer. He was a coarse, disagreeable man; but he had known my father and he treated me respectfully. He said they could not give me very good wages at first; but if I learned readily, and was skillful in tending the looms, I might in time make a very good living. The sums that he named seemed large, tried by my humble standard. Even at the beginning I should earn more than I had been able to for many months at my needle. After tea I told Nat. He lay very still for some moments; the tears rolled down his cheeks; then he reached up both hands and drew my face down to his, and said, 'Dear sister, it would be selfish to make it any harder for you than it must be at best. But oh, Dot, Dot! do you think you can dream what it is for me to have to lie here and be such a burden on you?'
"'Oh, Nat!' I said, 'if you don't want to break my heart, don't speak so. I don't have to earn any more for two than I should have to alone; it does not cost anything for you; and if it did, you darling, don't you know that I could not live without you? you are all I have got in the world.' Nat did not reply; but all that evening his face looked as I never saw it before. Nat was fifteen; instinct was beginning to torture him with a man's sense of his helplessness, and it was almost more than even his childlike faith and trust could bear.
"The next day I told Miss Penstock. She had been as kind to us as a mother through this whole year and a half, and I really think we had taken the place of children in her lonely old heart. But she never could forget that we were her minister's children; she always called me Miss Dora, and does to this day. She did not interrupt me while I told her my plan, but the color mounted higher and higher in her face. As soon as I stopped speaking, she exclaimed:—
"'Dora Kent, are you mad—a girl with a face like yours to go into the mills? you don't know what you're about.'
"'Yes I do, dear Pennie,' I said (Nat had called her Pennie ever since his sickness, when she had taken tender care of him night and day). 'I know there are many rude, bad men there, but I do not believe they will trouble me. At any rate I can but try. I must earn more money, Pennie; you know that as well as I do.'
"She did indeed know it; but it was very hard for her to give approbation to this scheme. It was not until after a long argument that I induced her to promise not to write to Aunt Abby till I had tried the experiment for one month.
"The next day I went to the mill. Everything proved much better than I had feared. Some of the women in the room in which I was placed had belonged to papa's Sunday-school, and they were all very kind to me, and told the others who I was; so from the outset I felt myself among friends. In two weeks I had grown used to the work; the noise of the looms did not frighten or confuse me, and it did not tire me to stand so many hours. I found that I should soon be able to do most of my work mechanically, and think about what I pleased in the mean time. So I hoped to be able to study at home and recite my lessons to myself in the mill. The only thing that troubled me was that I could not take Nat to and from school, and he had to be left alone sometimes. But I found a very pleasant and faithful Irish boy, who was glad to earn a little money by drawing him back and forth, often staying with him after school till I came home at six o'clock. This boy was the son of the Irish gardener on the overseer's place. The overseer was an Englishman; his name was Wilkins. He is the only human being I ever disliked so that it was hard to speak to him. His brother, too, the agent who had charge of all Mr. Maynard's business, was almost as disagreeable as he. They both looked like bloated frogs; their wide, shapeless mouths, flat noses, and prominent eyes, made me shudder when I looked at them.
"Little Patrick soon grew fond of Nat, as everybody did who came into close contact with him; and he used often to stay at our house till late at night, hearing Nat's stories, and watching him draw pictures on the blackboard. One of the things I had kept was a great blackboard which papa had made for him. It was mounted on a stout standard, so that it could be swung close in front of his chair or wagon, and he would lie there and draw for hours together. Some of the pictures he drew were so beautiful I could not bear to have them rubbed out. It seemed almost like killing things that were alive. Whenever I dared to spend a penny for anything not absolutely needful, I always bought a sheet of drawing-paper or a crayon; for Nat would rather have them than anything else in the world—even than a book—unless the book had pictures.
"One night, when I went home, I found him sitting up very straight in his wagon, with his cheeks crimson with excitement. Patrick was with him, and the table and the whole floor were covered with queer, long, jointed paste-board sheets, with pieces of gay-colored calicoes, pasted on them. Patrick looked as excited as Nat, and as soon as I opened the door he exclaimed, 'Och, Miss Dora, see how he's plazed with um.' I was almost frightened at Nat's face. 'Why Nat, dear,' said I, 'what are they? I don't think they are very pretty;' and I picked up one of the queer things and looked at it. 'The colors are bright and pretty, but I am sure almost all the patterns are hideous.'
"'Of course they are,' shouted Nat hysterically. 'That's just it. That's what pleases me so,' and he burst out crying. I was more frightened still. Trampling the calicoes under my feet, I ran and knelt by his chair, and put my arms around him. 'Oh, Nat, Nat, what is the matter?' cried I. 'Patrick, what have you done to him?' Poor Patrick could not speak; he was utterly bewildered; he began hastily picking up the prints and shuffling them out of sight.
"'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.
"'You know,' he said, 'I must send something so very good to begin with, that they can't help seeing at first sight how good it is.'
"'But not so good that you can't ever make another equal to it,' suggested I out of my practical but inartistic brain.
"'No danger of that, Dot,' said Nat, confidently. 'Dot, there isn't anything in this world I can't make a picture of, if I can have paper enough, and pencils and paint.'
"At last he finished three designs which he was willing to send. They were all for spring or summer dresses. One was a curious block pattern, the blocks of irregular shapes, but all fitting into each other, and all to be of the gayest colors. Here and there came a white block with one tiny scarlet dot upon it; 'That's for a black-haired girl, Dot,' said Nat; 'you couldn't wear it.'
"The second was a group of ferns tied by a little wreath of pansies; nothing could be more beautiful. The third was a fantastic mixture of pine-tassels and acorns. I thought it quite ugly, but Nat insisted on it that it would be pretty for a summer muslin; and so it was the next year, when it was worn by everybody, the little plumy pine-tassels of a bright green (which didn't wash at all), and the acorns all tumbling about on your lap, all sides up at once.
"It was one o'clock before we went to bed, and we might as well have sat up all night, for we did not sleep. The next morning I got up before light and walked into town, to a shop where they sold paints. I had just time to buy a box of water-colors and get back to the mill before the bell stopped ringing. All the forenoon the little white parcel lay on the floor at my feet. As often as I looked at it, I seemed to see Nat's pictures dancing on the surface. I had given five dollars for the box; I trembled to think what a sum that was for us to spend on an uncertainty; but I had small doubt. At noon I ran home; I ate little dinner—Nat would not touch a mouthful. 'You must see the pansies and ferns done before you go,' he said.
"And before my hour was up they were so nearly done that I danced around Nat's chair with delight.
"'I know Mr. Wilkins never saw anything so pretty in his life,' said Nat, calmly.
"The thought of Mr. Wilkins was a terrible damper to me. Nat had not seen him: I had.
"'Nat,' said I, slowly, 'Mr. Wilkins won't know that it is pretty. He is not a man; he is a frog, and he looks as if he lied. I believe he will cheat us.'
"Nat looked shocked. 'Why Dora, I never in my life heard you speak so. You shall not take them to him. I will have Patrick take me there.'
"'No, no, dear,' I exclaimed, 'I would not have you see Mr. Wilkins for the world. He is horrible. But I am not afraid of him.'
"I meant that I would not for the world have him see Nat. He was coarse and brutal enough to be insulting to a helpless cripple, and I knew it. But Nat did not dream of my reason for insisting so strongly on going myself, and he finally yielded.
"I took the pictures to the overseer's office at noon. I knew that 'Agent Wilkins,' as he was called to distinguish him from his brother, was always there at that time. He looked up at me, as I drew near the desk, with an expression which almost paralyzed me with disgust. But for Nat's sake I kept on. I watched him closely as he looked at the pictures. I thought I detected a start of surprise, but I could not be sure. Then he laid them down, saying carelessly, 'I am no judge of these things; I will consult some one who is, and let you know to-morrow noon if we can pay your brother anything for the designs.'
"'Of course you know that the market is flooded with this sort of thing, Miss Kent,' he added, as I was walking away. I made no reply; I was already revolving in my mind a plan for taking them to another mill in town, whose overseer was a brother of one of papa's wardens. The next day at noon I went to the office; my heart beat fast, but I tried to believe that I did not hope. Both the brothers were there. The overseer spoke first, but I felt that the agent watched me sharply.
"'So your lame brother drew these designs, did he, Miss Dora?'
"'My brother Nat drew them, sir; I have but one brother, said I, trying hard to speak civilly.
"'Well' said he, 'they are really very well done—quite remarkable, considering that they are the work of a child who has had no instruction; they would have to be rearranged and altered before we could use them, but we would like to encourage him and to help you too,' he continued, patronizingly, 'and so we shall buy them just as they are.'
"'My brother Nat is not a child,' replied I, 'and we do not wished to be helped. If the designs are not worth money, will you be so good as to give them back to me?' and I stepped nearer the desk and stretched out my hand toward the pictures which were lying there. But Agent Wilkins snatched them up quickly, and casting an angry glance at his brother, exclaimed:—
"'Oh, you quite mistake my brother, Miss Kent; the designs are worth money and we are glad to buy them; but they are not worth so much as they would be if done by an experienced hand. We will give you ten dollars for the three,' and he held out the money to me. Involuntarily I exclaimed, 'I had not dreamed that they would be worth so much.' Nat could earn then in four hours' work as much as I could in a week; in that one moment the whole of life seemed thrown open for us. All my distrust vanished. And when the agent added, kindly, 'Be sure and bring us all the designs which your brother makes. I think we shall want to buy as many as he will draw; he certainly has rare talent,'—I could have fallen on the floor at his feet to thank him, so grateful did I feel for this new source of income for us, and still more for the inexpressible pleasure for my poor Nat.
"From that day Nat was a changed boy. He would not go to school in the afternoons, but spent the hours from two till five in drawing. I had a cord arranged from our room to Miss Penstock's, so that he could call her if at any moment he needed help, and she was only too glad to have him in the house. When I reached home at six, I always found him lying back in his chair with his work spread out before him, and such a look of content and joy on his face, that more than once it made me cry instead of speaking when I bent over to kiss him. 'Oh, Dot—oh, Dot!' he used to say sometimes, 'it isn't all for the sake of the money, splendid as that is; but I do feel as if I should yet do something much better than making designs for calicoes. I feel it growing in me. Oh, if I could only be taught; if there were only some one here who could tell me about the things I don't understand!'
"'But you shall be taught, dear,' I replied; 'we will lay up all the money you earn. I can earn enough for us to live on, and then, with your money, in a few years we can certainly contrive some way for you to study.'
"It seemed not too visionary a hope, for Nat's designs grew prettier and prettier, and the agent bought all I carried him. One week I remember he paid me thirty dollars; and as he handed it to me, seeing how pleased I looked, he said,—
"'Your brother is getting quite rich, is he not, Miss Kent?' Something sinister in his smile struck me at that moment as it had not done for a long time, and I resolved to go more seldom to the office.
"We did not lay up so much as we hoped to; we neither of us had a trace of the instinct of economy or saving. I could not help buying a geranium or fuchsia to set in the windows; Nat could not help asking me to buy a book or a picture sometimes, and his paints and pencils and brushes and paper cost a good deal in the course of six months. Still we were very happy and very comfortable, and the days flew by. Our little room was so cozy and pretty, that Miss Penstock's customers used often to come in to see it; and if they happened to come when Nat was there, they almost always sent him something afterward; so, at the end of two years you never would have known the bare little room. We had flowers in both windows, and as each window had sun, the flowers prospered; and we had a great many pretty pictures on the walls, and Nat's sketches pinned up in all sorts of odd places. A big beam ran across the ceiling in the middle, and that was hung full of charcoal sketches, with here and there a sheet just painted in bars of bright color—no meaning to them, except to 'light up,' Nat said. I did not understand him then, but I could see how differently all the rest looked after the scarlet and yellow were put by their side. Some of our pictures had lovely frames to them, which Nat had carved out of old cigar-boxes that Patrick brought him. Sometimes he used to do nothing but carve for a week, and he would say, 'Dot, I do not believe drawing is the thing I want to do, after all. I want more; I hate to have everything flat.' Then he would get discouraged and think all he had done was good for nothing. 'I never can do anything except to draw till I go somewhere to be taught,' he would say, and turn back to the old calico patterns with fresh zeal.
"One day a customer of Miss Penstock's brought Nat a book about grapes, which had some pictures of the different methods of grape-culture in different countries. One of these pictures pleased him very much. It showed the grape-vines looped on low trees, in swinging festoons. He had the book propped up open at that picture day after day, and kept drawing it over and over on the blackboard and on paper till I was tired of the sight of it. It did not seem to me remarkably pretty. But Nat said one day, when I told him so,—
"'It isn't the picture itself, but what I want to make from it. Don't you see that the trees look a little like dancers whirling round, holding each other by the hand—one-legged dancers?'
"I could not see it. 'Well,' said Nat, 'look at this, and see if you can see it any better;' and he drew out of his portfolio a sheet with a rough charcoal sketch of six or seven low, gnarled, bare trees, with their boughs inter-locked in such a fantastic manner that the trees seemed absolutely reeling about in a crazy dance. I laughed as soon as I saw it. 'There!' said Nat triumphantly; 'now, if I can only get the vines to go just as I want them to, in and out, you see that will dress up the dancers.' He worked long over this design. The fancy seemed to have taken possession of his brain. He gave names to the trees, but he called them all men: 'It's a jolly crew of old kings,' he said; 'that's Sesostris at the head, and there's Herod; that old fellow with the gouty stomach under his left arm.' Nat was now so full of freaks and fun, that our little room rang with laughter night after night. Patrick used to sit on the floor sometimes, with his broad Irish mouth stiffened into a perpetual grin at the sight of the mirth, which, though he could not comprehend it, he found contagious.
"'But what will you do with it, Nat?' said I. 'It will never do for a calico pattern.'
"'I don't know,' said he reflectively; 'I might make it smaller and hide the faces, and not make the limbs of the trees look so much like legs, and call it the "vine pattern," and I guess old Wilkins would think it was graceful, and I dare say Miss Wilkins would wear it, if nobody else did.'
"'Oh! Nat, Nat, how can you,' exclaimed I, 'when they have been so good to pay us so much money?'
"'I know it,' said Nat, 'it's too bad; I'm ashamed now. But doesn't this look like the two Wilkins brothers? You said they looked like frogs?' he ran on, holding up a most ludicrous picture of two tall, lank frogs standing behind a counter, and stretching out four front legs like greedy hands across the counter, with a motto coming out of the right-hand frog's mouth: 'More designs, if you please, Mr. Kent—something light and graceful for summer wear.'
"These were the words of a note which Mr. Wilkins had sent to Nat a few weeks before. I laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks, for really the frogs did look like the brothers Wilkins. The picture haunted my mind for weeks afterward, and seemed somehow to revive my old distrust of them.
"A few days after this Nat had finished a set of designs 'for summer wear,' as the order said, and among them he had put in the 'One-Legged Dancers.'
"'It'll do no harm to try it,' said he. 'I think it would be lovely printed in bright-green on a white ground, and nobody but you and me would ever see the kings' legs in it.'
"It really was pretty; still I could not help seeing legs and heads and King Herod's stomach in it; and, moreover, it was entirely too large a figure for that year's fashions in calico or muslin. However, I said nothing and carried it with the rest. When I went the next day, Mr. Wilkins said, as he handed me the money,—
"'Oh, by the way, Miss Kent, one of the drawings has been mislaid. I suppose it is of no consequence; we could not use it; it was quite too large a figure, and seemed less graceful than your brother's work usually is; it was a picture of grape-vines.'
"'Oh,' said I, 'I told Nat I didn't believe that would be good for anything. No, it is not of the least consequence.'
"When I repeated this to Nat, he did not seem surprised at their refusal of the design; they had already refused several others in the course of the year. But he seemed singularly disturbed at the loss of the drawing. At last he urged me to go and ask if it had not been found.
"'I may do something with it yet, Dot,' he said. 'I know it is a good design for something, if not for calico, and I don't believe they have lost it. It is very queer.'
"But Mr. Wilkins assured me, with great civility and many expressions of regret, that the design was lost: that they had made careful search for it everywhere.
"The thing would have passed out of my mind in a short time but for Nat's pertinacious reference to it. Every few days he would say, 'It is very queer, Dot, about the One-Legged Dancers. How could such a thing be lost? They never lost a drawing before. I believe Miss Wilkins has got it, and is going to paint a big picture from it herself!'
"'Why, Nat!' I exclaimed, 'aren't you ashamed? that would be stealing.'
"'I don't care, Dot,' he said again and again, 'I never shall believe that paper was lost.'
"I grew almost out of patience with him; I never knew him to be unjust to any one, and it grieved me that he should be so to people who had been our benefactors.
"About four months later, one warm day in April, I walked over to the town after my day's work was done, to buy a gown for myself, and a new box of paints for Nat. I did not go to town more than two or three times a year, and the shop-windows delighted me as much as if I had been only eleven years old. As I walked slowly up and down, looking at everything, I suddenly started back at the sight of a glossy green and white chintz, which was displayed conspicuously in the central window of one of the largest shops. There they were, just as Nat had drawn them on the 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.
"'Let me see,' said he, trying to pretend to be racking his memory; 'the grape-vine pattern? It seems to me that I do recall something about a design with that name. Did you say we refused it?'
"'Yes, you refused it, but you did not return the drawing. You said it had been lost,' I replied.
"'Ah, yes, yes—now I recollect,' he said, recovering himself somewhat; 'we made great search for the drawing; I remember all about it now;' and he paused as if waiting civilly to know what more there could possibly be to be said on that point. But I watched him closely and saw that he was agitated. I looked him steadily in the eye and did not speak, while I slowly opened my little bundle and unrolled the piece of chintz.
"'Can you possibly explain this mystery, then, sir, that here is my brother's design printed on this chintz?' said I, in a clear, distinct tone, holding out the yard of chintz at its full length. As I said the words 'my brother's design,' the gentleman who had been talking with the overseer turned quickly round, and I saw that it was Mr. Maynard's youngest son Robert, who a year before had come home from Germany, and had recently been taken into the firm as partner. He stepped a little nearer me, and was evidently listening to my words.
"'Come into this room, Mr. Maynard, if you please, and we will finish discussing the matter we were speaking of,' said Overseer Wilkins, turning pale, and speaking very hurriedly, and trying to draw Mr. Maynard into the inner office-room.
"'And—if you will call some other time, Miss Kent,' said Agent Wilkins, turning away from me and walking toward Mr. Maynard, in his anxiety to prevent my being seen or heard, 'I will try to attend to this matter; but just now I have not another moment to spare,' and he began at once to talk in a loud and voluble manner.
"I do not know how I had strength and courage to do what I did then; I do not know where the voice came from with which I spoke then; Robert has always said that I looked like a young lioness, and that my voice sounded like the voice of one crying 'fire.' I stepped swiftly up to him, and before the astounded Wilkins could speak a word, I had held up the chintz and exclaimed, 'But Mr. Maynard will have time to spare, and I thank God he is here. Mr. Maynard, this design is one of my brother's drawing; he has made most of the calico designs printed in your father's mills for a year and a half: I brought this one to the agent; he said it was not good for anything, but he stole the paper and sold it, and here it is!' and then suddenly my strength all disappeared, great terror seized me, and I burst into tears. Both the agent and the overseer began to speak at once.
"'Be silent,' thundered Robert, in the most commanding tone I ever heard out of human lips. 'Be silent, both of you!' Then he took the chintz away from me, and taking both my hands in his, led me to a chair, saying, in a voice as sweet and gentle as the other was terrible, 'Pray be calm, my dear young lady—this matter shall be looked into. Sit down and do not try to speak for a few minutes.'
"Then he walked over to the brothers; even through my tears I could see how terrified they looked; they seemed struck dumb with fright; he spoke to them now in the most courteous manner, but the courtesy was almost worse than the anger had been before.
"'I shall have to ask you for the use of the office for a short time, gentlemen. This is an affair I prefer to investigate immediately, and I would like to see this young lady alone.' They both began to speak again, but he interrupted them.
"'I will send for you presently; not a word more now, if you please;' and in spite of themselves they were obliged to walk out of the room. As they turned to shut the door their faces frightened me.
"'Oh!' I exclaimed; 'oh, Mr. Maynard, they will kill Nat. I must go home at once,' and I rose trembling in every nerve. He made me sit down again, and brought me a glass of wine, and said, 'Do not be afraid, my dear child, they will not dare harm your brother. Drink this, and tell me your whole story.'
"Then I told him all. He interrupted me only once, to ask me about the prices paid us for two or three especial patterns which he happened to recollect. When I stopped, he jumped up from his chair and walked up and down in front of me, ejaculating, 'By Jove! this is infernal—I never heard of such a contemptible bit of rascality in my life. I have told my father ever since I came home that these men had bad faces, and I have looked carefully for traces of cheating in their accounts. But they were too cowardly to try it on a large scale.'
"He then told me that the originality and beauty of the designs which the Wilkinses had furnished the firm of late had attracted general attention; that they had said the best ones were the work of a sister in England, the others of the sister living with them. When he told me the prices which had been paid for them, I could not help groaning aloud and burying my face in my hands. 'Oh, my poor Nat!' I exclaimed, 'you might have had everything you wanted for that.'
"'But he shall have it still, Miss Kent,' said Robert—'I shall give you a check for the whole amount before you leave this room, and I do assure you that your brother has a fortune in his talent for drawing. Probably this work is only the beginning of what he will do.'
"As Robert opened the office-door for me to pass out, I saw the two Mr. Wilkinses standing together at the gate through which I must go. Robert answered my look of alarm by saying, 'I shall walk home with you, Miss Kent. They shall not annoy you.'
"As we came near, they both lifted their hats with obsequious, angry bows. Robert did not look at them, but said in a low tone, as we passed, 'Go to the office and wait there till I return.'
"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.'
"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,'"
Then she repeated them to me:—
The Angel of Pain.
Angel of Pain, I think thy face Will be, in all the heavenly place, The sweetest face that I shall see, The swiftest face to smile on me. All other angels faint and tire; Joy wearies, and forsakes desire; Hope falters, face to face with Fate, And dies because it cannot wait; And Love cuts short each loving day, Because fond hearts cannot obey That subtlest law which measures bliss By what it is content to miss. But thou, O loving, faithful Pain— Hated, reproached, rejected, slain— Dost only closer cling and bless In sweeter, stronger steadfastness. Dear, patient angel, to thine own Thou comest, and art never known Till late, in some lone twilight place The light of thy transfigured face Sudden shines out, and, speechless, they Know they have walked with Christ all day.
When she had done we sat for some time silent. Then I rose, and kissing her, still silent, went out into the unlighted room where the gilt table stood. A beam of moonlight fell, broad and white, across its top, and flickered on the vine-leaves and the ferns. In the dim weird light their shapes were more fantastic than ever.
The door into the outer hall stood open. As I went toward it, I saw old Anita toiling slowly up the stairs, with a flat basket on her head. Her wrinkled face was all aglow with delight. As soon as she reached the threshold she set the basket down, and exclaiming, "Oh look, look, Signora!" lifted off the cover. It was full of fresh and beautiful anemones of all colors. She moved a few on top and showed me that those beneath were chiefly purple ones.
"Iddio mio! will not the dearest of Signoras be pleased now!" she said. "The saints wish that she shall have all she desires; did not my Biagio's brother come in from Albano this morning? and as I was in the Piazza Navona, buying oranges, I heard him calling from a long way off, 'Ho Anita, my Anita, here are anemones for your beautiful Signora with the bright hair.'
"They grow around an old tomb a mile away from his vineyard, and he set out from his home long before light to get them for me; for he once saw the Signora and he had heard me say that she never could have enough of anemones. Iddio mio! but my heart is glad of them. Ah, the dearest of Signoras!" and, with a tender touch, Anita laid the cool vine-leaves lightly back upon the anemones and hurried on in search of Dora.