and even then he was so far
above him he had to bend over.

"'Nat,' said he, in a low tone, 'I never knelt to any human being before:
I didn't kneel to Dora when I asked her to give herself to me, for I was
sure I could so give myself to her as to make her happy; but it is to
you, after all, that I owe it that she is mine; I never can forget it for
an hour, and I never can repay you--no, not in my whole life-time, nor
with all my fortune.'

"Then he told him that the sum which it would need to support him and Miss
Penstock and Patrick in this way was so small, in comparison with our
whole income, that it was not worth mentioning. 'And at any rate,' he
said, 'it is useless for you to remonstrate, Nat, for I have already made
fifty thousand dollars' worth of stock so entirely yours, that you cannot
escape from it. The papers are all in my father's hands, and the income
will be paid to you, or left subject to your order, quarterly. If you do
not spend it, nobody else will;' and then Robert bent down lower, and
lifting Nat's thin hands tenderly in his, pressed them both against his
check, in the way I often did. It was one of the few caresses Nat loved. I
stood the other side of the chair, and I stooped down and kissed him, and
said:--

"'And, Nat, I cannot be quite happy in any other way.'

"So Nat yielded.

"It was hard to come away and leave him. For some time I clung to the hope
that he might come with us; but the physicians all said it would be
madness for him to run the risk of a sea-voyage. However, I know that for
him, the next best thing to seeing Europe himself is to see it through my
eyes. I write to him every week, and I shall carry home to him such
art-treasures as he has never dreamed of possessing.

"Next year we shall go home, and then he will come back to Maynard's
Mills and live with us. Robert is having a large studio built for him on
the north side of the house, with a bed-room and little sitting-room
opening out of it. Miss Penstock, too, will always live with us; we shall
call her 'housekeeper,' to keep her contented, and Patrick is to stay as
Nat's attendant. Poor fellow, he is not quite full-witted, we think; but
he loves Nat so devotedly that he makes a far better servant than a
cleverer boy would with a shade less affection.

"And now you have heard the story of my life, dear friend," said Dora, as
she rose from the seat and lighted the rose-colored tapers in two low
swinging Etruscan cand