"Where is your master?" asked Learning shortly.
"My master, indeed!" echoed Pride; "Dick never yet mastered me. I should rather say that I am his master!"
"Where has he gone?" inquired Learning, without seeming to notice the insolent remark.
"He has gone to History's shop, to purchase a carpet for his parlour. He is sure to select a pattern of the newest and most elegant design."
"Then I leave these for him," said the grave philosopher; "a bag full of bright brass Dates, and a hammer of Memory to knock them well in."
"If you had brought a sackful instead of a bagful," observed Pride, "it would not have been too much for Dick Desley; and as for the hammer—don't you know that he has a prodigiously fine Memory of his own?"
Without condescending to reply, Mr. Learning put down his gifts, turned round, and, quitting the cottage which harboured so impudent a guest, went to the next one, which was Lubin's. The door, as usual, was wide open, and the place deserted and empty. Mr. Learning did not even cross the threshold, so disgusted was he at the unfurnished, untidy state of the sluggard's home.
"I may as well leave these for him, but he'll never know how to use them," muttered Learning, throwing in the hammer and nails.
He then crossed over to Matty's pretty cottage. Her door was also ajar, and grave Mr. Learning stopped at it for some moments in astonishment at the sight which presented itself to his view.
Miss Folly, in her seven flounces, her beads and flowers, peacock's plume, rouge, ribbons, and all, was half reclining on the uncarpeted floor, engaged in blowing bubbles. As each rose from the bowl of her pipe, swelling and shining, and then mounting aloft, she watched it with a look of affected delight and admiration in her up-turned eyes. No contrast could be imagined greater than that between the stately gentleman clothed in black, with his broad intellectual brow, spectacled eyes, and grave, solemn manner; and light, fantastical, frivolous Miss Folly, clad in the most absurd of styles, but looking as though she thought herself the very pink of perfection.