round his parlour, already quite gay with the
Robinson Crusoe pattern. "I've done more, too, than you can see," he
added, striking his hand on the ladder of Spelling, which he had placed
by the wall; "I've learned every sentence in this ladder as perfectly as
any man can learn them, and can now climb to the very top with the
greatest safety and ease."

Matty and Lubin looked on their clever brother with eyes in which
admiration seemed mixed with a little envy.

"But how could you paper the room without paste?" exclaimed Nelly; "I
had charge of the whole supply."

"My dear simple sister," replied Dick, "you don't suppose that all the
paste in the world is held in your can, or that no other kind is to be
had. I took a stroll yesterday evening with my acquaintance, young
Pride, and he told me of a first-rate paste called Emulation, showed me
where to get it, and helped me to lay in a capital store. You've no
notion how pleasantly it made me get on with my work. I believe I shall
paper all my four rooms before you have finished a single one of yours."

"Oh, let me have some of your paste!" cried Matty.

"Have it and welcome," said Dick; "it's cheap, and there's plenty for
all. I don't know what is making our little Nelly look so serious and
grave."

"Oh, Dick," said the child, in a hesitating tone, "did not dear mother
warn us to have nothing to do with Pride?"

"He's a jolly good fellow!" cried Dick.

"But mother forbade us to keep company with him."

"Really, Nelly," said Dick, rather sharply, "I'm old enough to choose my
own friends."

"But if Pride should prove to be not a friend but an enemy? Oh, dear
brother, I should be afraid to use anything that Pride recommends."

Dick burst into a laugh. "Use what you like, poor, patient, plodding
little pussy; leave me to follow my own ways. You've not resolved, as I
have, to win the crown of Success. You were never made to shine, unless
it be like some little taper, giving its quiet light in a cottage; while
I mean to dazzle the world some day, like the eruption of a splendid
volcano."

"A precious lot of mischief you may do," observed Lubin; "better be a
sober taper in a cottage, that cheers and gives light to some one, than
a blazing volcano, that makes a grand show indeed, but leaves ruins and
ashes behind it."

"Every one to his liking!" cried Dick, nimbly mounting the ladder, and
spelling over the sentences so fast that his hearers could hardly follow
him.