"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.

[Illustration]

Now he had a secret which only Patrasche knew. There was a little
out-house to the hut, which no one entered but himself--a dreary place,
but with abundant clear light from the north. Here he had fashioned