Dick's injury had brought on brain-fever. For three days and nights Nelly scarcely quitted her brother. All his unkindness was quite forgotten, and she would not have left her place at his side for ought that the world could give. Dick had been severely, though not dangerously, hurt. It would be some time, the doctor said, before he would be fit for any exertion. Books must be kept from his sight; he must not, for weeks to come, be allowed to visit the town of Education. But his life had been happily spared; gradually his strength would return. Nelly did not like to tell the poor invalid that all the furniture of his cottage, which he had regarded with so much satisfaction, had been destroyed by the fire; nor that poor Matty's thatch had been burned, and her pretty white wall all blackened and scorched by the flame.
Dear reader! should you ever be tempted to harbour Pride, on account of a well-furnished head or a beautiful face—oh, remember how soon the fairest features may be made unsightly, the most talented mind rendered feeble and weak, by a sudden accident or fever. The labours of years may be swept away—the highest powers rendered useless; and one whom all admire to-day, may be but an object of pity to-morrow.
CHAPTER XXVI.
HEARING THE TRUTH.
T was not until Dick was able to sit up, propped by cushions, in an arm-chair, that Nelly could be persuaded by Lubin to make a little expedition with him to buy some things needful for their mother, whose arrival in two days was expected. Lubin liked to do nothing by himself; he would not have taken the trouble to cross brook Bother unless a sister had been at his side; and poor Matty had positively refused to go, as she disliked showing herself to strangers while her hair and eyebrows were so sadly disfigured by the fire.
"Please, Matty," said Nelly, before she set out, "see that poor Dick wants nothing during my absence. Perhaps you would sit beside him. But, pray, say nothing to him that can possibly vex or excite him; you know that he is still very weak, and the fever might possibly return."
Matty agreed to play the nurse for an hour, and with a slow and lingering step she accordingly went to the cottage in which her brother was staying.
It was sad to see the young, bright, active boy placed like an aged man in an arm-chair, his cheek, so lately glowing with health, almost as pale as the pillow upon which it was resting. Dick's eye was, however, still bright, and he had his old playfulness of manner, though his tone was more feeble than usual, as he exclaimed, on the entrance of his sister, "Why, Matty, you and I look for all the world as if we had been in the wars! I with this bandage across my brow, you with your hair cropped close, and your eyebrows all singed off; you can't think how funny you look!"