Page:The pilgrim's progress by John Bunyan every child can read (1909).djvu/256

240 Then said Christiana, "Oh, deliver me from this muck-rake!"

"That prayer," said the Interpreter, "has lain by till it is almost rusty. "Give me not riches is scarce the prayer of one of ten thousand. Straws, and sticks, and dust, with most, are the great things now looked after."

With that, Mercy and Christiana wept, and said, "It is, alas! too true."

When the Interpreter had showed them this, he had them into the very best room in the house; a very brave room it was. So he bid them look round about, and see if they could find anything there. Then they looked round and round; for there was nothing to be seen but a very great spider on the wall, and that they over-looked.

Then said Mercy, "Sir, I see nothing."

But Christiana held her peace.

"But," said the Interpreter, "look again."

She therefore looked again, and said, "Here is not anything but an ugly spider, who hangs by her hands upon the wall."

Then said he, "Is there but one spider in all this spacious room?"

Then the water stood in Christiana's eyes, for she was a woman quick of mind; and she said, "Yes, my lord; there is here more than one; yea, and spiders whose venom is far more destructive than that which is in her."