"Nay, grandfather, never," said the boy quickly, with a hot colour in
his bent face. "Simply and truly, Baas Cogez did not have me asked this
year. He has taken some whim against me."

"But thou hast done nothing wrong?"

"That I know--nothing. I took the portrait of Alois on a piece of pine;
that is all."

"Ah!" The old man was silent; the truth suggested itself to him with
the boy's innocent answer. He was tied to a bed of dried leaves in the
corner of a wattle hut, but he had not wholly forgotten what the ways of
the world were like.

He drew Nello's fair head fondly to his breast with a tenderer gesture.
"Thou art very poor, my child," he said, with a quiver the more in his
aged, trembling voice; "so poor! It is very hard for thee."

"Nay, I am rich," murmured Nello; and in his innocence he thought so;
rich with the imperishable powers that are mightier than the might of
kings. And he went and stood by the door of the hut in the quiet autumn
night, and watched the stars troop by and the tall poplars bend and
shiver in the wind. All the casements of the mill-house were lighted,
and every now and then the notes of the flute came to him. The tears
fell down his cheeks, for he was but a child; yet he smiled, for he said
to himself, "In the future!" He stayed there until all was quite still
and dark; then he and Patrasche went within and slept together, long and
deeply, side by side.