ted, 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