From time to time, Mrs. Maxwell came herself to dust among them, though Harty was sure to complain after such visits that his treasures had been greatly injured. On this particular morning Mrs. Maxwell had been thoroughly dusting, on account of the expected arrival, and as Harty entered the room he darted from Rosa, and carefully taking from the shelf some twigs, with bits of spiders' web attached to thorn, he angrily exclaimed, "Old Maxwell has been here, I know! I wish she would let my things alone! the hateful thing! See here, Rosa, this was a beautiful web, as perfect as it could be; I brought it only yesterday morning, when it was all strung with dew-drops, and now look at it! Isn't it enough to make any one angry?"
Rosa looked sorrowfully at her brother, and made no reply for a moment; at length she answered: "Dear Harty, you can find another spider's web; but angry words once spoken can never be taken back. Won't you show me what you have here, and forget your trouble?"
The hasty boy was soon engaged in explaining what all the queer-looking things were, and why he valued them. In some of them Rosa was much interested: she had never seen a titmouse's nest before, and as she took the curious home in her hand, she thought of the kind Heavenly Father who had taught those little creatures to build it with such skill, and had watched the nestlings from the time they left the shell, until they flew lightly away on their fluttering wings.
"What can you be thinking about?" said Harty, as she looked earnestly at the pretty thing.
"Pleasant thoughts," said Rosa, smiling, as she took from his hand a huge beetle.
Lucy wondered to see her sister take what seemed to her such a frightful thing so calmly in her hand. "There now! I like that!" shouted Harty, "she handles it like a boy. There's Lucy, she screams if I put such a thing near her, if it has been dead a month. Isn't she a goose?"
Lucy looked anxiously at Rosa, fearing she would say something unkind.
"Oh! yes, she is a little goose," was the reply, "but such a dear little goose, that I am sure I shall love her very much. We must teach her not to be afraid of trifles."
The timid child clasped Rosa's hand more closely, and inwardly resolved to try to please her sister in everything. She even touched with the tip of her finger a snake-skin from which she had always shrunk before, as she heard Harty and Rosa admiring it, while they handled it freely.
Some of the specimens which Harty seemed to think very precious were uninteresting to Rosa, and some were even disgusting; but she looked at all, and tried to discover the beauties which Harty so eagerly pointed out.