"But, Lubin," exclaimed Matty, who had just come in, "you will be quite ashamed of your house if it be furnished worse than a ploughboy's."
"It will do very well," replied Lubin. "I hate this papering nonsense, and I wish that Mr. Learning had been far enough away, rather than come to plague us poor children with his tiresome Reading and Spelling!"
CHAPTER IX.
MR. LEARNING'S VISIT.
T must not be supposed that during the time which it took to paper the cottages, other things were neglected; that Plain-work and Fancy-work were not watered, or that frequent shopping expeditions were not made to the town of Education. My history is by no means a journal of each day's proceedings, but only an account of some incidents that seem most worthy of note.
I wish that I could tell my young readers that Dick frankly owned himself sorry for having knocked down poor Lubin. Perhaps he would have done so, for he had a kind and generous disposition, but for the evil influence of Pride. This dark companion was almost always now at the elbow of Dick, filling him with notions of his own importance, making him look down upon every one who was not so sharp as himself. From cottage to cottage Pride moved, now putting in Lubin's mind gloomy, angry feelings towards his brother; now flattering the vanity of Matty, till she thought herself a perfect model of beauty and almost too good to keep company with her lame little sister Nelly. Pride did not fail also to try to put evil into Nelly's heart, but she never would let him converse with her; she remembered the words of her mother, and shunned the dark tempter who leads so many astray.
"I wonder," said Pride one day to Matty as she was watering her Fancy-work plant,—"I wonder why a lovely young creature like you should not spend more of Time's money upon dress."
Matty giggled and blushed, and said that she feared that there was not such a person as a good milliner to be found in all the town of Education.