"I can't think," said Matty to her sister, "how you could be so silly as to choose that ugly Plain-work,—I'm sure there's not a bit of beauty in it."
"I wait for the fruit," said Nelly meekly.
"It does not climb high like mine, to adorn the walls; it creeps heavily along the ground. It is such a mean-looking plant."
"We shall not think it mean in the season of ripening," observed Nelly.
"Ah, here comes Lubin!" cried Matty; "he was late for breakfast, as usual. Good-morning, my lazy brother. Do you know what has become of Dick?"
"Not I," answered Lubin, with a yawn.
"Perhaps he has been working at his cottage already," said Nelly, "and has been studying the ladder of Spelling. Just wait till I fetch the can of paste—we'll put Attention into several little pots, and all begin papering our walls together."
Nelly soon brought the paste, which she had kept during the night at house Needful. As Lubin and his sisters went towards the group of cottages, they heard the cheerful voice of Dick calling to them from the inside of his own.
"Come in here with you, and I'll show you something worth the seeing."
"Why, Dick," exclaimed Matty, who was the first to enter, "you don't mean to say that you have papered half your parlour already!"