nly 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 li