Doubtless he meant to show off his talent, but, in his eagerness to
be admired, he forgot--who can wonder that he did so?--the right
spelling of one little word. Down he fell crack on the floor, the moment
that he put his foot on the _poney_!

Up jumped Dick in a second, not hurt indeed, but a good deal mortified,
especially as Lubin laughed, and Matty began to titter.

"Here we go up, up, up,
Here we go down, down, down, oh!
That is clever Dick's way
Of winning the silver crown, oh!"

cried Lubin, his fat sides shaking with mirth.

"I would not stand that from him!" exclaimed a voice from without, and
the shadow of Pride, a beetle-browed, black-haired, ill-favoured lad,
now darkened the doorway of Dick.

"I'll stand no impudence!" cried Dick in a passion, and, dashing with
clenched fist up to Lubin, he knocked him down with a blow.

"Give it him well!" shouted Pride.

But Nelly rushed forward in haste, and threw herself between her two
brothers. "Oh, don't, don't!" she cried in distress; "remember our
mother, remember the love which we all should bear to one another! It
was wrong in Lubin to laugh--but oh, please--please don't beat him any
more."

"I'll beat him in another way!" exclaimed Dick, who was, perhaps, a
little ashamed of having struck his younger brother; "I'll beat him at
climbing this ladder,--one fall shall never daunt me!" and once more he
ascended the steps, spelling without a single blunder, till, on the very
topmost round, he waved his hand in triumph.

"I hope you're not hurt?" whispered Nelly to Lubin, who was slowly
rising from the ground.

The boy turned gloomily away.

"You don't want her, do you, to cuddle and pet you as if you were a
great big baby?" said Pride. "I wonder you don't go to your own cottage,
and shut yourself up quietly there."

"I'll go and have nothing more to do with any of them," muttered Lubin,
pushing Nelly aside, and leaving the cottage of Dick in a mood by no
means amiable.

Nelly sighed; and as it appeared that she could at present be of no more
use to her brothers, she quietly took her portion of Attention, and went
to paper her own little room.

I shall not tell of all her difficulties and troubles, nor how, when
using the ladder of Spelling, she found it several times give way, and
drop her down on the floor. The process of learning is a slow one, as
every one is likely to know who has done enough of the papering work to
be a