into the cottage. Affection soon followed, to attend to his
hurts and bind up his bleeding brow--for Affection is a nurse of great
skill.

The fire was out--the danger over; Duty rewarded the labourers, and the
cottages were left to the children and their two faithful friends in
need. Duty and Affection remained through all the dark hours of that
trying night, soothing Matty, encouraging Lubin, cheering the heart of
poor Nelly. Even when obliged to leave for awhile, the sisters paid
repeated visits to the cottage, bearing with them everything needful.
Nelly now found, indeed, what it was to have such friends as Duty and
Affection.

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.

It 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.