efactors.

"About four months later, one warm day in April, I walked over to the
town after my day's work was done, to buy a gown for myself, and a new box
of paints for Nat. I did not go to town more than two or three times a
year, and the shop-windows delighted me as much as if I had been only
eleven years old. As I walked slowly up and down, looking at everything, I
suddenly started back at the sight of a glossy green and white chintz,
which was displayed conspicuously in the central window of one of the
largest shops. There they were, just as Nat had drawn them on the missing
paper, 'The One-Legged Dancers!' Nat was right. It was a pretty pattern, a
very pretty pattern for a chintz; and there was--I laughed out in spite of
myself, as I stood in the crowd on the sidewalk--yes, there was the ugly
great knot in one of the trees which had made King Herod's stomach. But
what did it mean? No chintzes were made in any of Mr. Maynard's mills,
nor, so far as I knew, in any mill in that neighborhood. I was hot with
indignation. Plainly Nat's instinct had been a true one. The Wilkinses had
stolen the design and had sold it to some other manufacturers, not
dreaming that the theft could ever be discovered by two such helpless
children as Nat and I.

"I went into the shop and asked the price of the chintz in the window.

"'Oh, the grape-vine pattern? that is a new pattern, just out this spring;
it is one of the most popular patterns we ever had. A lovely thing, miss,'
said the clerk, as he lifted down another piece of it.

"'I will take one yard,' said I with a choking voice. I was afraid I
should cry in the shop. 'Do you know where this chintz is made?' I added.

"The clerk glanced at the price-ticket and read me the name. It was made
by a firm I had never heard of, in another State. No wonder the Wilkinses
thought themselves safe.

"When I showed Nat the chintz he seemed much less excited than I expected.
He was not so very much surprised; and, to my great astonishment, he was
not at first sure that it would be best to let the Wilkinses know that we
had discovered their cheating. But I was firm; I would have no more to do
with them. My impulse was to go to Mr. Maynard. Although during these
three years he had never come to see us, I felt sure that, in the bottom
of his heart, there still was a strong affection for us; and, above all,
he was a just man. He would never keep in his employ for one day any
person capable of suc