loundered in the brook of Bother, still
grasping her pot of Plain-work.

"Oh, dear, dear! how the thorn-needles are pricking my fingers!" gasped
Nelly.

"Then let go--throw the stupid Plain-work away," cried Matty.

But Nelly had too brave a spirit for that. She knew that what was worth
acquiring was worth bearing, and she would not be discouraged by a
trifle. I wish that some of my little readers who sit pouting and
fretting over a seam, crying over a broken needle, or a prick on a tiny
finger, could have seen Nelly when, with repeated efforts, she scrambled
out of the brook, with Plain-work safe in her grasp.

The two girls now made their way up the hill of Puzzle, on their return
to the cottages of Head. Matty, eager to plant her pretty creeper,
greatly outstripped her sister, as she had done when they at first had
set out. But with patient, uncomplaining labour, Nelly Desley plodded on
her course, and before long both Plain-work and Fancy-work were safely
transplanted into the ground by the wall at the back of the gardens.

[Illustration: Nelly could hardly see the stepping-stones through the
thick leaves of the plant which she bore. _Page 27._]

CHAPTER V.

MR. ALPHABET.

"Now we're all ready to set off to Messrs. Reading and Writing," cried
Dick, as the four children stood together on the slope of the hill; "I
vote we have a race--one, two, three, off and away!" and dashing forward
like a young stag, he rushed down the hill, distancing even Matty, and
with the force of his own rapid descent cleared brook Bother at a bound.

Nelly could not help clapping her hands.

"I should have thought," observed fat Lubin, who had kept at her side,
"that you, of all people in the world, would have hated this silly
racing, and disliked to see any one go at so desperate a pace."

"Why should I dislike it?" asked the lame child; "I would go at a great
pace too, if I only were able."

"But when you are lame, does it not vex you to be so distanced by
others?"

Nelly hesitated a little before she replied, "Sometimes, I own, it does
vex me a little; but then I am comforted when I think that as long as I
do my best I should be only glad that others can do better."

Lubin and Nelly came up with their brother and sister at the cottage of
Mrs. Sewing; for Dick, who was in a merry mood, had stopped there to
help the old dame to transplant a fine slip of Fancy-work, and Matty was
standing laughing beside him.

"Se