"It was offered to him as well as to you," said Duty with a graver air; "and I thought at first that your brother would have gladly accepted my offer. But there came to this shore of the brook a dark, ill-favoured lad—"
"It must have been Pride!" exclaimed Nelly, who knew too well her brother's companion.
"This Pride," continued Duty, "began to taunt and to scoff. 'Holloa!' he shouted across the stream, 'will a genius like you stoop to be directed by a woman! Duty is for slaves, and Patience for donkeys. Kick aside that miserable plank, and clear the brook with a bound, as you've often cleared it before.'"
"Dick is a wonderful boy for jumping," cried Nelly, who greatly admired her brother.
"He jumped once too often," observed Duty; "this time he jumped not over but into the brook, and mighty was the splash which he made!"
Even gentle Affection could scarcely help laughing at the recollection of the scene.
"But he scrambled out!" exclaimed Nelly.
"Yes; very muddy, and wet, and cross, leaving all his three grates behind him. I do not know whether Pride dried Dick's clothes, and wiped off the mud, they both ran off as fast as they could; I think that your brother was ashamed to be seen, after having so scornfully refused the aid of Affection and Duty."
It was now time for Nelly to continue her walk and return to her own little cottage. Her beautiful friends accompanied her all the way up hill Puzzle, and made the steep way quite pleasant by their cheerful, wise conversation. Tiring as her lonely expedition to the town of Education had been, Nelly never in future times remembered without a feeling of enjoyment her little adventure by the brook where she had met with Duty and Affection.
Dick with some trouble recovered his grates from the stream. But he never looked at them with pleasure, for they served to remind him of the day when, prompted by foolish Pride, he had overtasked his powers, and, spurning the plank of Patience, had gone floundering into brook Bother!