He came many following mornings, always to paint Nannie, getting more interested every time in the simple-hearted widow and her bright little child, while they in turn delighted in his visits, his stories, and his painting.
At last the day came when he had to go back to the city. Nannie cried her eyes as red as the maple leaves, and they all felt that "good-by" was a very miserable word.
So the stranger went away, and the widow tried to console herself and Nannie by making a journey to the nearest town, and laying out the wonderful ten dollars in warm clothing for Nannie; but though Nannie got very busy and happy over her shopping, she did not forget her stranger friend, and felt even bright red flannel a very poor substitute for kind blue eyes.
Nannie spent the long white months very merrily, romping by day and sleeping by night, only one thing happening to vary the quiet life: at Christmas came a letter and a box of goodies from the stranger, then all went on as before.
By-and-by winter turned to spring in town and country, the spring fashions of one doing duty for the spring leaves of the other; and among the pleasantest of spring fashions in New York is—the Exhibition of that "great big room called the Academy," about which the stranger had told Nannie so much. And this fair April upon its walls hung the picture of a bright-faced little girl, clad and capped with scarlet leaves, coming out of the dim gray woods.
Of all the many visitors there not one passed it by unnoticed; young ladies all beauty and old ladies all back-bone and eyeglasses, artists gray-headed and young fellows just from Paris, one and all, and many more, stopped to admire the brown-eyed child so quaintly garmented. The morning and the evening papers, too, did not overlook it, but patted the young artist kindly with their pens. Rich people talked about it, and the richest bought it for the sake of saying that "the gem of the Exhibition" was in his gallery.
A few days after this a letter, registered and stamped carefully enough to carry it to China, had that been its destination, came to Nannie and her mother—a letter from the stranger, telling all about it, and sending to his "little good genius" a check for fifty dollars.
What other wonderful things were the result of that queer dress of leaves may perhaps be told some day.
