"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.