"Oh! yes, you can, if you try," continued Nannie. "And as for my watch, why, when you are a great swell painter you can buy me one--a real beauty--and I shall like it ever so much better than any other one in all the world."
Rosalind clasped Nannie close to her heart.
"My Nannie, my Nannie," she cried, "I shall never be as brave and helpful as you are. While I have been grumbling, and growling, and railing at fate, you have been putting your shoulder to the wheel, and----. Oh! Nannie, Nannie, it is good of you! It is good! I shall never forget it. The first penny I earn, dear, shall be yours; and I will never forget what my dear little sister has done for me, never--never, as long as I live."
A few days after this Rosalind was hard at work in the studio of the artist for whose teaching she had longed for so many weary months. And how she did work!
"I have one pupil who works," her maestro got into the habit of saying. "Some of you have a natural gift; you have a correct eye, and you have firm touch. Every one of you might make progress if you tried. But there is only one of you all who works. That is Miss Mackenzie."
But, all too soon, Rosalind's ten pounds melted away, until they had all gone. And, as there was no more where they had come from, Rosalind's lessons must also come to an end!
"Oh! Mother, can't you do anything to help Rosie?" Nannie cried in piteously beseeching accents the night before Rosalind was to go to the studio for the last time.
"Nannie," answered Mrs. Mackenzie reproachfully, "don't you think I would if I could?"
"Daddy, can you do nothing?" Nannie implored.
"My little one, I am so poor just now," he answered.