Alois."

"You do not love me," said the little spoilt child, pushing him away; but
the boy shook his head and smiled, and went on his way through the tall
yellow corn, seeing as in a vision some day in a fair future when he
should come into that old familiar land and ask Alois of her people, and
be not refused or denied, but received in honor, whilst the village folk
should throng to look upon him and say in one another's ears, "Dost see
him? He is a king among men, for he is a great artist and the world speaks
his name; and yet he was only our poor little Nello, who was a beggar as
one may say, and only got his bread by the help of his dog." And he
thought how he would fold his grandsire in furs and purples, and portray
him as the old man is portrayed in the Family in the chapel of St.
Jacques; and of how he would hang the throat of Patrasche with a collar of
gold, and place him on his right hand, and say to the people, "This was
once my only friend;" and of how he would build himself a great white
marble palace, and make to himself luxuriant gardens of pleasure, on the
slope looking outward to where the cathedral spire rose, and not dwell in
it himself, but summon to it, as to a home, all men young and poor and
friendless, but of the will to do mighty things; and of how he would say
to them always, if they sought to bless his name, "Nay, do not thank
me--thank Rubens. Without him, what should I have been?" And these dreams,
beautiful, impossible, innocent, free of all selfishness, full of heroical
worship, were so closely about him as he went that he was happy--happy
even on this sad anniversary of Alois's saint's day, when he and Patrasche
went home by themselves to the little dark hut and the meal of black
bread, whilst in the mill-house all the children of the village sang and
laughed, and ate the big round cakes of Dijon and the almond gingerbread
of Brabant, and danced in the great barn to the light of the stars and the
music of flute and fiddle.