T 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.

"Please, Matty," said Nelly, before she set out, "see that poor Dick wants nothing during my absence. Perhaps you would sit beside him. But, pray, say nothing to him that can possibly vex or excite him; you know that he is still very weak, and the fever might possibly return." Matty agreed to play the nurse for an hour, and with a slow and lingering step she accordingly went to the cottage in which her brother was staying.

It was sad to see the young, bright, active boy placed like an aged man in an arm-chair, his cheek, so lately glowing with health, almost as pale as the pillow upon which it was resting. Dick's eye was, however, still bright, and he had his old playfulness of manner, though his tone was more feeble than usual, as he exclaimed, on the entrance of his sister, "Why, Matty, you and I look for all the world as if we had been in the wars! I with this bandage across my brow, you with your hair cropped close, and your eyebrows all singed off; you can't think how funny you look!"

Poor Matty hid her face with her hands, and was ready to burst into tears.

"Oh, don't take it to heart!" cried Dick; "hair will soon grow again, you know. I wonder that your friend Miss Folly has not helped you to an elegant wig."

"She is no friend of mine!" exclaimed Matty, with vehemence. "Do you not know that it was Folly who caused the explosion? She thought, like an idiot as she is, that it would be fun to put a match to the fireworks when all our backs were turned, and make us start with surprise. It was her meddling that caused all this mischief and misery;" and again poor disfigured Matty hid her face in her hands.

"Then I hope that you'll cut her from this day forth," observed Dick.

"She has cut us," replied Matty, quickly. "Have you not heard how her flounces were all in a blaze, and how she rushed about as if mad, into a cottage and out again, till Nelly and Lubin knocked her down just in time to save her from being quite burned?"

"I have heard nothing," said Dick, raising himself on his chair, with an expression of curiosity and interest; "you know that Nelly has been my nurse, and she would hardly speak a word for fear lest she should put me into a fever."

Matty was eager to impart all her knowledge, quite regardless of Nelly's parting warning, and began to talk so fast that Dick could not help being reminded of poor Miss Folly.

"Well, you shall hear everything now. Folly was knocked down, or pulled down, as I said, and then rolled about in the mud, till you could hardly have distinguished her head from her feet, or her peacock's plume from a cow's tail. And very thankful and very much delighted she ought to have been, for, if she had been quite choked with mire, it would have been better than burning alive!"

"A painful choice," observed Dick.

"But she was not choked to death," continued Matty; "she was not hurt the least bit; and yet—would you believe it?—Miss Folly is in a most furious rage against those who saved her. She declares that she ought to have a lawsuit against Nelly and Lubin to recover the value of her clothes, and another to get them punished for knocking her into the mud; and she has promised a thousand times never to come near one of our family again."

"I hope," said Dick, with a smile, "that for once Miss Folly may keep her promise. But what has become of her red cockatoo?"

"Ah, there's another great grievance!" cried Matty. "The bird must have been frightened by the explosion; and no wonder, for a terrible sight it was, and a horrible noise it made. Parade has flown off, no one knows whither; and though papers and placards about him have been put up in every direction, offering no end of rewards to whoever will bring him back, the bird is not to be found. Folly says, that poor innocent I must have hidden him somewhere from view; but I am sure that I have not even a guess whither the gaudy creature has fled!" "Had you hidden him," observed Dick Desley, "Parade would soon have betrayed you by screaming out 'Ain't I fine?' And what has become of Pride?"

"Some say," replied Matty, "that he got a great blow on the nose at the time of the explosion; others say that he was not at all injured by it. He certainly did not help Duty to put out the fire. All that I know of Pride is, that he came to our villas this morning, and walked straight up to yours, I suppose from its being the one which he had been most accustomed to visit. I saw him from my window, standing awhile with folded arms, gloomily surveying the place; he then shrugged his shoulders, said, 'What a wreck!' and instantly stalked away."

"What did he mean by exclaiming 'What a wreck?'" asked Dick, with a look of surprise.

"He meant your poor cottage, of course," replied Matty; "all its furniture burned and destroyed."

"How—what?" exclaimed Dick in a startled tone; "the fire was not in my cottage at all; the explosion took place by yours."

"I know that too well," sighed poor Matty; "but Folly rushed straight into your home, blazing away like a rocket, then rushed out again, but not before she had set your curtains on fire." "Do you mean that all my furniture is burned!" exclaimed Dick, striking his fist with violence upon a table that was near him.

"Burned to a cinder," replied Matty; "there's scarcely anything left but the grates."

"The carpet—the splendid carpet destroyed too?" cried poor Dick, starting upright on his feet.

"Great holes burned in every part, and all the dates as black as charcoal!"

Dick sank back on his seat with a groan.

"The beautifully papered walls," continued Matty, "not fit to be looked at now; the fine furniture-facts mere charred wood, or little heaps of gray ashes!"

"And mother coming back the day after to-morrow!" exclaimed Dick, with a burst of anguish. "And doubtless Mr. Learning will come with her, bringing the crown of Success for which I have laboured so hard! I must go at once to the town," he cried wildly; "I must work, work hard till they appear!" And springing from his chair he made an effort to walk; but the limbs, once so active and strong, would no longer support his weight, and, overcome with vexation, Dick tottered back into his seat.

"I can't do it," he cried; "I can't go! Oh, misery and disappointment! Leave me, Matty, leave me; remain no longer with a wretched boy who has lost everything that he valued!"

Matty was frightened at the vehement storm of passion which her indiscretion had raised; and being quite unable to speak a word of comfort to her brother, she crept out of the cottage, feeling more unhappy than when she had entered it.

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