The Crown of Success Part 8

"There, now; that's something that I can quite recommend; it's decidedly _a la mode_, worn by all the d.u.c.h.esses, countesses, baronesses, and lady mayoresses, at all the b.a.l.l.s, routs, conversaziones, and concerts given this season! And--yes, just try that bonnet on your head, and look at yourself in this gla.s.s"--(Folly always carries a gla.s.s)--"doesn't it show off the charming face?--doesn't it suit the pretty complexion?--doesn't it make you look quite bewitching, a lovely little fairy as you are?"

"Matty!" cried Lubin, the moment Folly paused to take breath, "we're going to Arithmetic the ironmonger; will you come with us and buy a new grate?"

"Multiplication is a vexation, Addition is as bad; The Rule of Three doth puzzle me, And Fractions make me mad!"

cried Folly, rolling her goggle eyes, and thinking herself quite a wit.

"Was it not at Arithmetic's factory that d.i.c.k hurt himself yesterday?"

said Matty.

"Hurt himself, did he?" interrupted Folly, who seemed resolved to take the largest share of the conversation. "Why did he not come to me for a salve? I've the best salve that ever was invented--Flattery salve, warranted to heal all manner of bruises and sores; yes, headaches, and heartaches, and all kinds of aches. It's patronized by all the heads of the n.o.bility and gentry. I've tried it myself many a time, and always find it a perfect cure! When I've the high-strikes (I'm very subject to the high-strikes), I just rub a little on the tip of my ear, and it calms down my nerves like a charm. I wish you would try it!" she cried, turning to Lubin.

"I'm not subject to high-strikes, and don't want Flattery salve," said the boy, in his blunt, simple manner; "all I want is to know whether you, Matty, will go with us to the town of Education."

"I can't go to-day!" cried Matty, annoyed at being interrupted by her brother and sister; "I shall want every minute of Time's money to buy some of Miss Folly's pretty things!"

"Leave Miss Folly, I should say," cried Lubin, who had no want of plain common-sense; "a pleasant, good-humoured smile makes a face look nicer than all that flummery there."

"Dear Matty, the days go fast," said Nelly, "and you know that our mother expects to find our cottages well furnished on her return. I really think that we've no Time money to spare upon what can be of no possible use."

"What would my Lady Fas.h.i.+on, my most particular friend, say if she could hear you?" exclaimed Folly, who had been struggling to get in a word, much talking being very characteristic of Folly; "she--Lady Fas.h.i.+on I mean--is always for the ornamental; the useful she leaves to the vulgar. As for your sister there" (Folly only condescended to speak to Matty), "she knows nothing, I see, of flounces, furbelows, fringes, and flowers; she'd put on a bonnet back part forward, or a shawl wrong side out; and she looks like a whipping-post, or a thread-paper, or a--"

"Oh, stop that jabber, will you!" cried Lubin, putting his hands to his ears.

"Come with us, Matty," entreated Nelly, "and buy something solid and useful. Summer will soon be over, and when cold weather comes, what should we do without grates?"

"I can't come, and I won't come!" cried Matty pettishly; "don't you see that I'm exceedingly busy?"

"Come away, Nelly," said Lubin; "leave her to her fine Miss Folly; let her furnish her head, if she likes it, with fairies, furbelows, and flounces!"

Off went the brother and sister, but they had proceeded some way from the door before they got beyond reach of the sound of Miss Folly's chattering tongue.

Down hill Puzzle, across brook Bother, along Trouble lane, fat little Lubin and Nelly went very sociably together.

"I don't think that you're as lame as you were," said the boy.

"The way seems shorter than it did," observed Nelly; "but one feels the hill most when coming back."

As the children pa.s.sed Mr. Reading's fine shop, little Alphabet peeped through the grating, to the no small annoyance of Lubin.

"Ha, ha! my brave fellow!" cried the dwarf, "have you mounted the ladder of Spelling, and have you now come to jump over my head?"

Lubin did not answer, but quickened his pace. He and his sister soon found themselves at the bottom of Multiplication stairs.

"I wonder how we shall ever get up to the top?" thought lame Nelly, as, with rather a disconsolate air, she glanced up the twelve flights of steps.

CHAPTER XII.

A VISIT TO ARITHMETIC.

"It's a dreadful pull up this staircase!" exclaimed Lubin, as panting and puffing he stopped half-way, his fat round face flushed with fatigue till it looked almost the colour of a c.o.c.k's comb.

"It is dreadfully tiring!" sighed Nelly, pausing a moment to take breath.

"It is worse than the ladder of Spelling!" cried Lubin. "I vote that we go back at once."

"Oh no, dear Lubin!" said his sister, immediately starting again on her weary ascent--"perseverance, you know, conquers difficulties;" and as she uttered the words, the lame girl stumbled at that step _seven times eight_.

"You'll never succeed," observed Lubin.

"I'll try again," said the patient Nelly; and slowly but steadily she mounted.

Her example encouraged her brother to follow.

"I say, Nelly," observed Lubin, "what a plague all this education furnis.h.i.+ng is! What lucky dogs those savages are who live in caves that want no fittings, and who have never heard of Reading papers, or ladders of Spelling, or this horrible Multiplication!"

Nelly could not help laughing.

"The very same thought was pa.s.sing through my head," said she; "but I tried to drive it away, for it seemed to be only fit for Miss Folly."

"Perhaps a cave might not be so very pleasant," rejoined Lubin. "But I wish that some good-natured fairy could furnish these cottages of ours with a stroke of her wand, and save us all this terrible trouble."

"It would not be so good for us, I daresay," said Nelly, stumbling again at _nine times six_.

"And why not?" inquired her brother.

"Why," replied Nelly, as she rubbed her bruised ankle, "I think that the trouble and pain serve to exercise our patience and perseverance, and to make us more fit to meet the trials which are sure to come when we are older. Besides," she added, still mounting as she spoke, "we take more pleasure in that which has cost us trouble than in that which we get with ease; and it is real enjoyment to feel that a difficulty has been overcome."

"I'm sure that we can have no pleasure from this Multiplication stair."

"Oh yes, when we get to the top!" cried Nelly, who had just reached the pleasant tenth flight, and now went along it hand in hand with her brother at a pace that was almost rapid.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted Lubin, not long after, as he stood panting on the topmost step.

"Oh, what a charming view!" exclaimed Nelly. "I'm so glad that we persevered!"

"It's a tremendous big place, this town of Education," said Lubin, looking down from his height. "I don't like the look of all those Ologies. I'm afraid that a great lot of things are required for a really well-furnished house."

"We have only to think of our grates at present," said Nelly. "Please keep close beside me, Lubin; for I've heard that Mr. Arithmetic is a terribly hard man, and I'm rather afraid to face him."

So again, hand in hand, the two children walked into the big shop together, and looked in wonder, as d.i.c.k had done, at the great heaps of goods within it.

"We won't go near that machinery part," whispered Lubin. "One of these big thundering engines would crack my poor head like a nutsh.e.l.l."