University of Virginia Library | PZ8.1.H318 W 1900A A wonder book for bo unui boys and gir | soi 730 | Se j 76) (Cie ae, See eeLIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA | PRESENTED BY Mary Helen George\ SEMEOEL A ZA GA Sone \ \Y MOO nns SOSN SEAN SRS SIAN SENS — WANA : — SSN SS SO SS SAMO AS ae S SES PSEA SRS Mts F is Pinelgsios IAT SOON Se= Sas ey no — _ =<. ——> Lag oe PERIL. Saas a Ss aS AZ Le eS eS = Ss ? RSS AG asf ie (Yess <> s g Ss =: OTT ITS = me sce — = s+ Ny = aie SS — Ss SE — = = ay SSS 5 Ss >= — Sg _ Sane WEEE SL et Ae eo eT a we: ——— pee a es ede (tiepiie A ad — PO eg OE + eS S Up = NT S = Leia % A WIRES p= A 2 EF Epimetheus entered softly, for he meant, if possible, to steal behind Pandora, and fling a wreath of flowers over her head.—Page 124.A WONDER BOOK FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. COMPRISING STORIES OF CLASSICAL FABLES. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. ILLUSTRATED. NEW YORK: A. L BURT, PUBLISHER.SSS SAS LAO AAO AA ML igs Bea ee Peers OE OEEPREFACE, Tue author has long been of opinion that many of the classical myths were capable of being rendered into very capital reading for children. In the little volume here offered to the public he has worked up half a dozen of them with this end in view. A creat freedom of treatment was necessary to his plan, but it will be observed by every one who attempts to render these legends malleable in his intellectual furnace that they are marvelously independent of all temporary modes and circumstances. They remain essentially the same after changes that would affect the identity of almost any- thing else. He does not, therefore, plead guilty to a sac- rilege in having sometimes shaped anew, as his fancy dictated, the forms that have been hal- lowed by an antiquity of two or three thousand years. No epoch of time can claim a copyright in these immortal fables. They seem never toIV PREFACE. have been made, and certainly, so long as man exists, they can never perish, but by their indestructibility itself they are legitimate sub- jects for every age to clothe with its own garniture of manners and sentiment and to 1m- bue with its own morality. In the present ver- sion they may have lost much of their classical aspect (or, at all events, the author has not been careful to preserve it), and have, perhaps, assumed a Gothic or romantic guise. In performing this pleasant task—for it has been really a task fit for hot weather, and one of the most agreeable, of a literary kind, which he ever undertook—the author has not always thought it necessary to write downward in order to meet the comprehension of children. He has generally suffered the theme to soar whenever such was its tendency, and when he himself was buoyant enough to follow without an effort. Children. possess an unestimated sensibility to whatever 1s deep or high in imagi- nation or feeling, so long as it is simple likewise. It is only the artificial and the complex that bewilders them. LENOx, July 15, 1851.CONTIN ES. PAGE TANGLEWOOD PORCH. mi raductory to “*'Fhe Gorgon’s Headi’:. 2.5 cssen cs cca 1 ureter G TIGAD, . oc Soes sb eos 4 Baweere eects Coit coc es 10 TANGLEWOOD PORCH. After the Story ...... ge eee eo SEO cle gic beseech 5d SHADOW BROOK. fa eeductory to ‘‘The Golden Touch.”........«; marc dies 58 Tae GOLDEN TOUCH........ st nt tay cone ene rea aa 63 SHADOW BROOK. Rete CHE DUOTY 5 cc ik ccs veh etn eee Genes sae Cine neues 95 TANGLEWOOD PLAYROOM. Introductory to ‘‘The Paradise of Children.”........... 100 Re ADIN OF CHILDREN 6, oo Sacs ce dca vin oeu oe nds oeees 106 TANGLEWOOD PLAYROOM. We RG GE coho aia ase «a cin ode ease bore oe wen ee 137 TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE. Introductory to ‘‘The Three Golden Apples.”..... eee. Aa re Pree GOUDEN APPLOS. ..ccescccuccesss Seen bee ewan 149 TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE. After the Story....... ic cee eave ab om eee eesTHE HILLSIDE. Tam MIRACULOUS PITCHER. ......-: THE HILLSIDE. After PM) SLORY: 5 oc. 5 ccs sine fer ee BALD SUMMIT. Introductory to ‘‘ The Chimera.”’. WMeR OUENERIR ASC 6s ces fue ses clece es ors ee BALD SUMMIT. ALOE TNO SOV sc 5600s esis seis ewe vl CONTENTS. eeeoveces Introductorv to ‘“‘The Miraculous Pitcher.”.. PAGE 192 197 234 236 241A WONDER BOOK: TANGLEWOOD PORCH. INTRODUCTORY TO “THE GORGON’S HEAD.” Breneats the porch of the country seat called Tanglewood one fine autumnal morning was assembled a merry party of little folks with a tall youth in the midst of them. They had planned a nutting expedition, and were impa- tiently waiting for the mists to roll up the hill- slopes and for the sun to pour the warmth of the Indian summer over the fields and pastures and into the nooks of the many-colored woods. There was the prospect of as fine a day as ever gladdened the aspect of this beautiful and com- fortable world. As yet, however, the morning mist filled up the whole length and breadth ot the valley above which, on a gently-sloping eminence, the mansion stood.A WONDER BOOK. This body of white vapor extended to within less than a hundred yards of the house. It completely hid everything beyond that distance, except a few ruddy or yellow tree-tops which here and there emerged and were glorified by the early sunshine, as was likewise the broad surface of the mist. Four or five miles off to the southward rose the summit of Monument Mountain, and seemed to be floating on a cloud. Some fifteen miles further away, in the same direction, appeared the loftier dome of Taconic, looking blue and indistinct, and hardly so sub- stantial as the vapory sea that almost rolled over it. The nearer hills which bordered the valley were half-submerged, and were specked with little cloud wreaths all the way to their tops, On the whole, there was so much cloud and so little solid earth that it had the effect of a vision. The children above mentioned, being as full of life as they could hold, kept overflowing from the porch of Tanglewood and scampering along the gravel walk or rushing across the dewy herbage of the lawn. I can hardly tellA WONDER BOOK. o how many of these small people there were— not less than nine or ten, however, nor more than a dozen, of all sorts, sizes, and ages, whether girls or boys. They were brothers, sisters, and cousins, together with a few of their young acquaintances, who had been invited by Mr. and Mrs. Pringle to spend some of this delightful weather with their own children at Tanglewood. I am afraid to tell you their names, or even to give them any names which other children have ever been called by, be- cause, to my certain knowledge, authors some- times get themselves into great trouble by acci- dentally giving the names of real persons to the characters in their books. For this reason I mean to call them Primrose, Periwinkle, Sweet Fern, Dandelion, Blue Eye, Clover, Huckle- berry, Cowslip, Squash-blossom, Milkweed, Plantain, and Buttercup, although, to be sure, such titles might better suit a group of fairies than a company of earthly children. It is not to be supposed that these little folks were to be permitted by their careful fathers and mothers, uncles, aunts, or grandparents towe Re RARE A WONDER BOOK. stray abroad into the woods and fields without the guardianship of some particularly grave and elderly person. Oh, no, indeed! In the first sentence of my book you will recollect that I spoke of a tall youth standing in the midst of the children. His name—and I shall let you know his real name, because he considers it a vreat honor to have told the stories that are here to be printed—his name was Lustace Bright. He was a student at Williams College, and had reached, I think, at this period the venerable age of eighteen years, so that he felt quite like a grandfather toward Periwinkle, Dandelion, Huckleberry, Squash-blossom, Milkweed, and the rest, who were only half or a third as venerable as he. A trouble in his eyesight (such as many students think it necessary to have, nowadays, in order to prove their diligence at their books) had kept him from college a week or two after the beginning of the term. But, for my part, I have seldom met with a pair of eyes that looked as if they could see further or better than those of Eustace Bright. This learned student was slender and ratherA WONDER BOOK. dD pale, as all Yankee students are, but yet of a healthy aspect, and as light and active as if he had wings to his shoes. By the by, being much addicted to wading through streamlets and across meadows, he had put on cowhide boots for the expedition. He wore a linen blouse, a cloth cap, and a pair of green spectacles, which he had assumed, probably, less for the preserva- tion of his eyes than for the dignity that they imparted to his countenance. In either case, however, he might as well have let them alone, for Huckleberry, a mischievous little elf, crept behind Eustace as he sat on the steps of the porch, snatched the spectacles from his nose, and clapped them on her own; and as the student forgot to take them back, they fell off into the grass and lay there till the next spring. Now, Eustace Bright, you must know, had won great fame among the children as a nar- rator of wonderful stories; and though he sometimes pretended to be annoyed when they teased him for more and more, and always for more, yet I really doubt whether he liked any- thing quite so well as to tell them. You mightA WONDER BOOK, have seen his eyes twinkle, therefore, when Clover, Sweet Fern, Cowslip, Buttercup, and most of their playmates besought him to relate one of his stories while they were waiting for the mist to clear up. “Yes, Cousin Eustace,” said Primrose, who was a bright girl of twelve with laughing eyes and a nose that turned up a little, “the morning is certainly the best time for the stories with which you so often tire out our patience. We shall be in less danger of hurting your feelings by falling asleep at the most interesting points —as little Cowslip and I did last night.” !” cried Cowslip, a child of six years old; “I did not fall asleep, and T “ Naughty Primrose only shut my eyes so as to see a picture of what Cousin Eustace was telling about. His stories are good to hear at night, because we can dream about them asleep; and good in the morning too, because then we can dream about them awake. So I hope he will tell us one this very minute.” “Thank you, my little Cowslip,” said Eus- tace; “certainly you shall have the best storyA WONDER BOOK, U I can think of, if it were only for defending me so well from that naughty Primrose. But, children, I have already told you so many fairy tales that I doubt whether there is a single one which you have not heard at least twice over. I am afraid you will fall asleep in reality if I repeat any of them again.” “No, no, no!” cried Blue Eye, Periwinkle Plantain, and half a dozen others. “We like a story all the better for having heard it two or three times before.” And it is a truth as regards children that a story seems often to deepen its mark in their interest, not merely by two or three, but: by numberless, repetitions. But Eustace Bright, in the exuberance of his resources, scorned to avail himself of an advantage which an older story-teller would have been glad to grasp at. “Tt would be a great pity,” said he, “if a man of my learning, to say nothing of original fancy, could not find a new story every day, year in and year out, for children such as you. I will tell you one of the nursery tales that were made for the amusement of our great oldAL 8 A WONDER BOOK. grandmother, the Earth, when she was a child in frock and pinafore. There are a hundred such, and it is a wonder to me that they have not long ago been put into picture-books for little girls and boys. But, instead of that, old gray-bearded grandsires pore over them in musty volumes of Greek, and puzzle themselves with trying to find out when and how and for what they were made.” “ Well, well, well, well, Cousin Eustace !” cried all the children at once; “talk no more about your stories, but begin.” “Sit down, then, every soul of you,” said Eus. tace Bright, “and be all as still asso many mice. At the shghtest interruption, whether from great, naughty Primrose, little Dandelion, or any other, I shall bite the story short off between my teeth and swallow the untold part. But, in the first place, do any of you know what a Gorgon 19?” “T do,” said Primrose. “Then hold your tongue,” rejoined Eustace, who had rather she would have known nothing about the matter. “Hold all your tongues andA WONDER BOOK. 9 I shall tell you a sweet, pretty story of a Gor. gon’s head.” And so he did, as you may begin to read on the next page. Working up his sophomorical erudition with a good deal of tact and incurring great obligations to Professor Anthon, he never. theless disregarded all classical authorities whenever the vagrant audacity of his imagina- tion impelled him to do go.A WONDER BOOK, THE GORGON’S HEAD. Perseus was the son of Danaé, who was the daughter of a king, and when Perseus was a very little boy some wicked people put his mother and himself into a chest and set them afloat upon the sea. The wind blew freshly and drove the chest away from the shore, and the uneasy billows tossed it up and down, while Danaé clasped her child closely to her bosom and dreaded that some big wave would dash its foamy crest over them both. The chest sailed on, however, and neither sank nor was upset, until, when night was coming, it floated so near an island that it got entangled in a fisherman’s nets and was drawn out high and dry upon the sand. The island was called Seriphus and it was reigned over by King Polydectes, who hap- pened to be the fisherman’s brother. This fisherman, Iam glad to tell you, was anA WONDER BOOK. AT exceedingly humane and upright man. He showed great kindness to Danaé and her little boy and continued to befriend them until Perseus had grown to be a handsome youth, very strong and active and skillful in the use of arms. Long before this time King Polydectes had seen the two strangers—the mother and her child—who had come to his dominions in a floating chest. As he was not good and kind like his brother the fisherman, but extremely wicked, he resolved to send Perseus on a dangerous enterprise in which he would probably be killed, and then to do some great mischief to Danaé herself. So this bad-hearted king spent a long while in con- sidering what was the most dangerous thing that a young man could possibly undertake to perform. At last, having hit upon an enter- prise that promised to turn out as fatally as he desired, he sent for the youthful Perseus. The youth came to the palace and found the king sitting upon his throne. “Perseus,” said King Polydectes, smiling craftily upon him, “you are grown up a fine young man. You and your good mother have12 A WONDER BOOK. received a great deal of kindness from myself, as well as from my worthy brother the fisher- man, and I suppose you would not be sorry to repay some of it.” “Please, your majesty,” answered Perseus, “I would willingly risk my life to do so.” “Well, then,” continued the king, still with a cunning smile on his lips, “I have a little adventure to propose to you; and, as you are a brave and enterprising youth, you will doubtless look upon it as a great piece of good luck to have so rare an opportunity of distinguishing yourself. You must know, my good Perseus, I think of getting married to the beautiful Princess Hippodamia, and it is customary on these occasions to make the bride a present of some far-fetched and elegant curiosity. I have been a little perplexed, I must honestly confess, where to obtain anything likely to please a princess of her exquisite taste. But this morn- ing, I flatter myself, I have thought of precisely the article.” “And can I assist your majesty in obtaining it?” cried Perseus eagerly.A. WONDER BOOK: 13 “You can, if you are as brave a youth as I believe you to be,” replied King Polydectes, with the utmost graciousness of manner. “The bridal gift which I have set my heart on pre- senting to the beautiful Hippodamia is the head of the Gorgon Medusa with the snaky locks, and I depend on you, my dear Perseus, to bring it tome. So, as lam anxious to settle affairs with the princess, the sooner you go in quest of the Gorgon the better I shall be pleased.” “T will set out to-morrow morning,” answered Perseus. “Pray do so, my gallant youth,” rejoined the king. “And, Perseus, in cutting off the Gor- gon’s head be careful to make a clean stroke, so as not to injure its appearance. You must bring it home in the very best condition in order to suit the exquisite taste of the beautiful Princess Hippodamia.” Perseus left the palace, but was scarcely out of hearing before Polydectes burst into a laugh, being greatly amused, wicked king that he was, to find how readily the young man fell into the snare. The news quickly spread abroad that14 A WONDER BOOK. Perseus had undertaken to cut off the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. Everybody was rejoiced, for most of the inhabitants of the island were as wicked as the king himself, and would have liked nothing better than to see some enormous mischief happen to Danaé and her son. The only good man in this unfortunate island of Seriphus appears to have been the fisherman. As Perseus walked along, therefore, the people pointed after him and made mouths, and winked to one another, and ridiculed him as loudly as they dared. “Ho, ho!” eried they; “Medusa’s snakes will sting him soundly !” Now, there were three Gorgons alive at that period, and they were the most strange and ter- rible monsters that had ever been seen since the world was made, or that have been seen in after days, or that are likely to be seen in all time to come. I hardly know what sort of creature or hobgoblin to call them. They were three sisters, and seem to have borne some distant resemblance to women, but were really a very frightful and mischievous species of dragon. It is indeed difii-A WONDER BOOK, 15 cult to imagine what hideous beings these three sisters were. Why, instead of locks of hair, if you can believe me, they had each of them a hundred enormous snakes growing on their heads, all alive, twisting, wriggling, curling and thrusting out their venomous tongues with forked stings at the end. The teeth of the Gor- gons were terribly long tusks; their hands were made of brass, and their bodies were all over scales, which, if not iron, were something as hard and impenetrable. They had wings, too, and exceedingly splendid ones, I can assure you, for every feather in them was pure, bright, glitter- ing, burnished gold, and they looked very daz- aling, no doubt, when the Gorgons were flying about in the sunshine. But when people happened to catch a glimpse of their glittering brightness aloft in the air, they seldom stopped to gaze, but ran and hid them- selves as speedily as they could. You will think, perhaps, that they were afraid of being stung by the serpents that served the Gorgons instead of hair, or of having their heads bitten off by their ugly tusks, or of being torn all toA WONDER BOOK. 16 pieces by their brazen claws. Well, to be sure, these were some of the dangers, but by no means the greatest nor the most difficult to avoid. For the worst thing about these abominable Gor. gons was that if once a poor mortal fixed his eyes full upon one of their faces he was certain that very instant to be changed from warm flesh and blood into cold and lifeless stone. Thus, as you will easily perceive, it was a very dangerous adventure that the wicked King Polydectes had contrived for this innocent young man. Perseus himself, when he had thought over the matter, could not help seeing that he had very little chance of coming safely through it, and that he was far more likely to become a stone image than to bring back the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. For, not to speak of other difficulties, there was one which it would have puzzled an older man than Perseus to get over. Not only must he fight with and slay this golden-winged, iron-scaled, long-tusked, brazen-clawed, snaky-haired mon- ster, but he must do it with his eyes shut, or at least without so much as a glance at the enemyA WONDER BOOK, 1? with whom he was contending. Else, while his arm was lifted to strike, he would stiffen into stone, and stand with that uphfted arm for centuries, until time and the wind and weather should crumble him quite away. This would be a very sad thing to befall a young man who wanted to perform a great many brave deeds and to enjoy a great deal of happiness in this bright and beautiful world. So disconsolate did these thoughts make him that Perseus could not bear to tell his mother what he had undertaken to do. He therefore took his shield, girded on his sword, and crossed over from the island to the mainland, where he sat down in a solitary place and hardly re- frained from shedding tears, But while he was in this sorrowful mood he heard a voice close beside him. “ Perseus,” said the voice, “ why are you sad?” He lifted his head from his hands, in which he had hidden it, and, behold! all alone as Perseus had supposed himself to be, there was a stranger in the solitary place. It was a brisk, intelligent, and remarkably shrewd - looking18 A WONDER BOOK. young man, with a cloak over his shoulders, an odd sort of cap on his head, a strangely twisted staff in his hand, and a short and very crooked sword hanging by his side. He was exceed- ing light and active in his figure, like a person much accustomed to gymnastic exercises and well able to leap or run. Above all, the stranger had such a cheerful, knowing and helpful aspect (though it was certainly a little mischievous into the bargain) that Perseus could not help feeling his spirits grow livelier as he gazed at him. Beside, being really a courageous youth, he felt greatly ashamed that anybody should have found him with tears in his eyes, like a timid little schoolboy, when, after all, there might be no occasion for despair. So Perseus wiped his eyes and answered the stranger pretty briskly, putting on as brave a look as he could. “JT am not so very sad,” said he, “only thoughtful about an adventure that I have undertaken.” “Oho!” answered the stranger. “ Well, tell me all about it and possibly I may be of service to you. I have hel ped a good many young menA WONDER BOOK. 19 through adventures that looked difficult enough beforehand. Perhaps you may have heard of me. Ihave more names than one, but the name of Quicksilver suits me as well as any other. Tell me what your trouble is and we will talk the matter over and see what can be done.” The stranger’s words and manner put Perseus into quite a different mood from his former one. He resolved to tell Quicksilver all his difficulties, since he could not easily be worse off than he already was, and very possibly his new friend might give him some advice that would turn out well in the end. So he let the stranger know, in few words, precisely what the case was—how that King Polydectes wanted the head of Medusa with the snaky locks as a bridal gift for the beautiful Princess Hippodamia, and how that he had undertaken to get it for him, but was afraid of being turned into stone. “And that would be a great pity,” said Quicksilver, with his mischievous smile. “ You would make a very handsome marble statue, it is true, and it would be a considerable number of centuries before you crumbled away, but, ona 20 A WONDER BOOK. the whole, one would rather be a young man for a few years than a stone image for a great many.” “Oh, far rather!” exclaimed Perseus, with the tears again standing in his eyes. “ And, besides, what would my dear mother do if her beloved son were turned into a stone ?” “Well, well! let us hope that the affair will not turn out so very badly,” rephed Quicksilver in an encouraging tone. “I am the very person to help you, if anybody can. My sister and myself will do our utmost to bring you safe — through the adventure, ugly as it now looks.” “Your sister?” repeated Perseus. “Yes, my sister,” said the stranger. “She is very wise, I promise you; and as for myself, I generally have all my wits about me, such as they are. If you show yourself bold and cautious and follow our advice, you need not fear being a stone image yet awhile. But, first of all, you must polish your shield till you can see your face in it as distinctly as in a mirror.” This seemed to Perseus rather an odd begin-A WONDER BOOK. 21 ning of the adventure, for he thought it of far more consequence that the shield should be strong enough to defend him from the Gorgon’s brazen claws than that it should be bright enough to show him the reflection of his face. However, concluding that Quicksilver knew better than himself, he immediately set to work and scrubbed the shield with so much diligence and good-will that it very quickly shone like the moon at harvest-time. Quicksilver looked at it with a smile and nodded his approbation. Then, taking off his own short and crooked sword, he girded it about Perseus, instead of the one which he had before worn. “No sword but mine will answer your pur- pose,” observed he; “the blade has a most ex- cellent temper, and will cut through iron and brass as easily as through the slenderest twig. And now we will set out. The next thing is to find the Three Gray Women, who will tell us where to find the Nymphs.” “The Three Gray Women!” cried Perseus, to whom this seemed only a new difficulty in the path of his adventure; “pray, whom may22 A WONDER BOOK. the Three Gray Women be? I never heard of them before.” “They are three very strange old ladies,” said Quicksilver laughing. “They have but one eye among them, and only one tooth. More- over, you must find them out by starlight or in the dusk of the evening, for they never show themselves by the light either of the sun or moon.” “But,” said Perseus, “why should I waste my time with these Three Gray Women? Would it not be better to set out at once in search of the terrible Gorgons ?” “No, no,” answered his friend. “'There are other things to be done before you can find your way to the Gorgons. There is nothing for it but to hunt up these old ladies, and when we meet with them you may be sure that the Gorgons are not a great way off. Come, let us be stirring.” Perseus by this time felt so much confidence in his companion’s Sagacity that he made no more objections, and professed himself ready to begin the adventure immediately. TheyA WONDER BOOK. me accordingly set out and walked at a pretty brisk pace—so brisk, indeed, that Perseus found it rather difficult to keep up with his nimble friend Quicksilver. To say the truth, he had a singular idea that Quicksilver was furnished with a pair of winged shoes, which of course helped him along marvelously. And then, too, when Perseus looked sideways at him out of the corner of his eye, he seemed to see wings on the side of his head, although if he turned a full gaze there were no such things to be per- ceived, but only an odd kind of cap. But, at all events, the twisted staff was evidently a great convenience to Quicksilver, and enabled him to proceed so fast that Perseus, though a remarkably active young man, began to be out of breath. “Here!” cried Quicksilver at last—for he knew well enough, rogue that he was, how hard Perseus found it to keep pace with him—“ take you the staff, for you need it a great deal more than I. Are there no better walkers than your: self in the island of Seriphus 2” “I could walk pretty well,” said Perseus,94 A WONDER BOOK. glancing slyly at his companion’s feet, “if I had only a pair of winged shoes.” “We must see about getting you a pair,” answered Quicksilver. But the staff helped Perseus along so bravely that he no longer felt the slightest weariness. In fact, the stick seemed to be alive in his hand, and to lend some of its lifeto Perseus. He and Quicksilver now walked onward at their ease, talking very sociably together, and Quicksilver told so many pleasant stories about his former adventures, and how well his wits had served him on various occasions, that Perseus began to think him a very wonderful person. He evi- dently knew the world, and nobody is so charm- ing to a young man as a friend who has that kind of knowledge. Perseus listened the more eagerly in the hope of brightening his own wits by what he heard. At last he happened to recollect that Quick- silver had spoken of a sister who was to lend her assistance in the adventure which they were now bound upon.A WONDER BOOK. 25 A “Where is she2” he inquired. “Shall we not meet her soon 2” “ All at the proper time,” said his companion. “But this sister of mine, you must understand, is quite a different sort of character from my- self. She is very grave and prudent, seldom smiles, never laughs, and makes it arule not to utter a word unless she has something particu- larly profound to say. Neither will she listen to any but the wisest conversation.” “Dear me!” ejaculated Perseus; “I shall be afraid to say a syllable.” “She is a very accomplished person, I assure you,” continued Quicksilver, “and has all the arts and sciences at her fingers’ ends. In short, she is so immoderately wise that many people call her wisdom personified. But, to tell you the truth, she has hardly vivacity enough for my taste, and I think you would scarcely find her so pleasant a traveling companion as myself. She has her good points, nevertheless, and you will find the benefit of them in your encounter with the Gorgons.” By this time it had grown quite dusk. They26 A WONDER BOOK. were now come to a very wild and desert place, overgrown with shaggy bushes, and so silent and solitary that nobody seemed ever to have dwelt or journeyed there. All was waste and desolate in the gray twilight, which grew every moment more obscure. Perseus looked about him rather disconsolately, and asked Quicksilver whether they had a great deal further to go. “Hist! hist!” whispered his companion. “Make no noise. This is just the time and place to meet the Three Gray Women. Be careful that they do not see you before you see them, for, though they have but a single eye among the three, it is as sharp-sighted as half a dozen common eyes.” “But what must I do,” asked Perseus, “when we meet them ?” Quicksilver explained to Perseus how the Three Gray Women managed with their one eye. They were in the habit, it seems, of changing it from one to another, as if it had been a pair of spectacles or—which would have suited them better—a quizzing-glass. When one of the three had kept the eye a certain SESE SSNS OOA WONDER BOOK, oF é time, she took it out of the socket and passed it to one of her sisters whose turn it might happen to be, and who immediately clapped it into her own head and enjoyed a peep at the wisible world. Thus it will be easily under- stood that only one of the Three Gray Women could see, while the other two were in utter darkness ; and, moreover, at the instant when the eye was passing from hand to hand neither of the poor old ladies was able to see a wink. I have heard of a great man y strange things in my day, and have witnessed not a few, but none, it seems to me, that can compare with the oddity of these Three Gray Women all peeping through a single eye. So thought Perseus likewise, and was so astonished that he almost fancied his companion was joking with him, and that there were no such old women in the world. “You will soon find whether I tell the truth observed Quicksilver. “Hark! bush ! hist! hist! There they come, now.” Perseus looked earnestly through the dusk of the evening, and there, sure enough, at no great or no,’SSSA AAA Ce 99 A WONDER BOOK. Ae distance off, he descried the Three Gray Women. The light being so faint, he could not well make out what sort of figures they were, only he discovered that they had long gray hair, and as they came nearer he saw that two of them had but the empty socket of an eye in the middle of their foreheads. But in the middle of the third sister’s forehead there was a very large, bright, and piercing eye, which sparkled like a great diamond in a ring; and so penetrating did it seem to be that Perseus could not help thinking it must possess the gift of seeing in the darkest midnight just as pertectly ag at noonday. Thesight of three persons’ eyes was melted and collected into that single one. Thus the three old dames got along about as comfortably, upon the whole, as 1f they could all see at once. She who chanced to have the eye in her forehead led the other two by the hands, peeping sharply about her all the while, inso- much that Perseus dreaded lest she should see right through the thick clump of bushes behind which he and Quicksilver had hidden them-A WONDER BOOK. 29 selves. My stars! It was positively terrible to be within reach of so very sharp an eye. But before they reached the clump of bushes one of the Three Gray Women spoke. “Sister! Sister Scarecrow !” cried she, “you have had the eye long enough. It is my turn now !” “Let me keep it a moment longer, Sister Nightmare,” answered Scarecrow. “I thought I had a glimpse of something behind that thick bush.” “Well, and what of that?’ retorted Night- mare peevishly. -‘‘Can’t I see intoa thick bush as easily as yourself? The eye is mine as well as yours, and I know the use of it as well as you, or maybe a little better. I insist upon taking a peep immediately.” But here the third sister, whose name was Shakejoint, began to complain, and said that it was her turn to have the eye, and that Scare- crow and Nightmare wanted to keep it all to themselves. ‘To end the dispute, old Dame Scarecrow took the eye out of her forehead and held it forth in her hand.a0 A WONDER BOOK. “Take it, one of you,” cried she, “and quit this foolish quarreling. or my part, I shall be glad of a little thick darkness. Take it quickly, however, or I must clap it into my own head again.” Accordingly, both Nightmare and Shakejoint stretched out their hands, groping eagerly to snatch the eye out of the hand of Scarecrow. But, being both alike blind, they could not easily find where Scarecrow’s hand was; and Scarecrow, being now just as much in the dark as Shakejoint and Nightmare, could not at once meet either of their hands in order to put the eye into it. Thus (as you will see with half an eye, my wise little auditors) these good old dames had fallen intoastrange perplexity. For though the eye shone and glistened like a star as Scarecrow held it out, yet the Gray Women caught not the least glimpse of its light, and were all three in utter darkness from too impa- tient a desire to see. Quicksilver was so much tickled at beholding Shakejoint and Nightmare both groping for the eye, and each finding fault with Scarecrow andA WONDER BOOK. aL with one another, that he could scarcely help laughing aloud. “Now is your time!” he whispered to Per. seus. “Quick, quick! before they can clap the eye into either of their heads. Rush out upon the old ladies and snatch it from Scarecrow’s hand.” In an instant, while the Three Gray Women were stil] scolding each other, Perseus leaped from behind the clump of bushes and made him- self master of the prize. The marvelous eye, as he held it in his hand, shone very brightly, and seemed to look up into his face with a knowing air, and an expression as if it would have winked had it been provided with a pair of eye- lids for that purpose. But the Gray Women knew nothing of what had happened, and, each supposing that one of her sisters was in posses- sion of the eye, they began their quarrel anew. At last, as Perseus did not wish to put these respectable dames to greater inconvenience than was really necessary, he thought it right to ex- plain the matter. “My good ladies,” said he, “pray do not beBP A WONDER BOOK. anery with one another. If anybody is in fault, it is myself, for [ have the honor to hold your very brilliant and excellent eye in my own hand.” “You! you have our eye? And who are you 2” screamed the Three Gray Women all in a breath, for they were terribly frightened, of course, at hearing a strange voice and discover- ing that their eyesight had got into the hands of they could not guess whom. “Oh, what shall we do, sisters? what shall we do? We are all in the dark! Give us our eye! Give us our one precious, solitary eye! You have two of your own! Give us our eye!” “Tell them,” whispered Quicksilver to Per- seus, “that they shall have back the eye as soon as they direct you where to find the Nymphs who have the flying slippers, the magic wallet, and the helmet of darkness.” “My dear, good, admirable old ladies,” said Perseus, addressing the Gray Women, “there is no occasion for putting yourselves into such a fright. I am by no means a bad young man. You shall have back your eye, safe and sound SSS SeA WONDER BOOK. ao and as bright as ever, the moment you tell me where to find the Nymphs.” “The Nymphs! Goodness me! sisters, what Nymphs does he mean?” screamed Scarecrow. “There are a great many Nymphs, people say —some that go a-hunting in the woods, and some that live inside of trees, and some that have a comfortable home in fountains of water. We know nothing at all aboutthem. We are three unfortunate old souls that go wandering about in the dusk, and never had but one eye among us, and that one you have stolen away. Oh, give it back, good stranger! whoever you are, give it back !” All this while the Three Gray Women were groping with their outstretched hands and try- ing their utmost to get hold of Perseus, but he took good care to keep out of their reach. “My respectable dames,” said he—for his mother had taught him always to use the great- est civility—“I hold your eye fast in my hand, and shall keep it safely for you until you please to tell me where to find these Nymphs—the Nymphs, I mean, who keep the enchantedo4 A WONDER BOOK. wallet, the flying slippers, and the—what 1s it? —the helmet of invisibility.” “Mercy on us, sisters! what is the young man talking about?” exclaimed Scarecrow, Nightmare, and Shakejoint one to another, with great appearance of astonishment. “ A pair of flying slippers, quoth he! His heels would quickly fly higher than his head if he were silly enough to put them on. And a helmet of in- visibility! How could a helmet make him invisible unless it were big enough for him to hide under it? And an enchanted wallet! What sort of a contrivance may that be, I won- der? No, no, good stranger! we can tell you nothing of these marvelous things. You have two eyes of your own, and we but a single one among us three. You can find out such won- ders better than three blind old creatures like WS. Perseus, hearing them talk in this way, began really to think that the Gray Women knew nothing of the matter, and, as it grieved him to have put them to so much trouble, he was just on the point of restoring their eye and askingA WONDER BOOK. 35 pardon for his rudeness in snatching it away. But Quicksilver caught his hand. “ Don’t let them make a fool of you,” said he. “These Three Gray Women are the only per- sons in the world that can tell you where to find the Nymphs, and unless you get that infor. mation you will never succeed in cutting off the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. Keep fast hold of the eye and all will go well.” As it turned out, Quicksilver was in the right. There are but few things that people prize so much as they do their eyesight, and the Gray Women valued their single eye as highly as if it had been half a dozen, which was the number they ought to have had. Finding that there was no other way of recovering it, they at last told Perseus what he wanted to know. No sooner had they done so than he immediately and with the utmost respect clapped the eye into the vacant socket in one of their foreheads, thanked them for their kindness, and bade them farewell. Before the young man was out of hearing, however, they had got into a new dispute because he happened to have given the eye to36 A WONDER BOOK, Scarecrow who had already taken her turn of it when their trouble with Perseus commenced. It is greatly to be feared that the Three Gray Women were very much in the habit of dis- turbing their mutual harmony by bickerings of this sort, which was the more pity as they could not conveniently do without one another, and were evidently intended to be inseparable com- panions. As a general rule, I would advise all people, whether sisters or brothers, old or young, who chance to have but one eye among them to cultivate forbearance, and not all insist upon peeping through it at once. Quicksilver and Perseus in the meantime were making the best of their way in quest of the Nymphs. The old dames had given them such particular directions that they were not long in finding them out. They proved to be very different persons from Nightmare, Shake- joint, and Scarecrow, for instead of being old they were young and beautiful, and instead of = 3 one eye among the sisterhood each Nymph had two exceedingly bright eyes of her own, with which she looked very kindly at Perseus. Theyh S/T YY YOY Wy Vy hy ff eee: Unexpectedly the slipper spread its wings, and would have flown away had not Quicksilver luckily caught it in the air.—Page 37.SS a SS VAS OAT GSAS SN Cha SLPLLLIPD ragA WONDER BOOK. ve seemed to be acquainted with Quicksilver, and when he told them the adventure which Perseus had undertaken they made no difficulty about giving him the valuable articles that were in their custody. In the first place, they brought out what appeared to be a small purse made of deerskin and curiously embroidered, and bade him be sure and keep it safe. This was the magic wallet. The Nymphs next produced a pair of shoes or slippers or sandals with a nice little pair of wings at the heel of each. “Put them on, Perseus,” said Quicksilver. “You will find yourself as light-heeled as you can desire for the remainder of our jour- ney.” So Perseus proceeded to put one of the slip- pers on, while he laid the other on the ground by his side. Unexpectedly, however, this other slipper spread its wings, fluttered up off the ground, and would probably have flown away if Quicksilver had not made a leap and luckily caught it in the air. “Be more careful,” said he as he gave it back to Perseus. “It would frighten the birds upae A WONDER BOOK. aloft if they should see a flying slipper among them.” When Perseus had got on both of these won- derful slippers he was altogether too buoyant to tread on earth. Making asstep or two, lo and behold! upward he popped into the air, high above the heads of Quicksilver and the nymphs, and found it very difficult to clamber down again. Winged slippers and all such high- flying contrivances are seldom quite easy to manage until one grows a little accustomed to them. Quicksilver laughed at his companion’s involuntary activity, and told him that he must not be in so desperate a hurry, but must wait for the invisible helmet. The good-natured Nymphs had the helmet with its dark tuft of waving plumes all in read- iness to put upon his head. And now there happened about as wonderful an incident as anything that I have yet told you. The instant before the helmet was put on, there stood Perseus, a beautiful young man with golden ringlets and rosy cheeks, the crooked sword by his side, and the brightly-polished shield uponA WONDER BOOK. 39 his arm—a figure that seemed all made up of courage, sprightliness, and glorious light. But when the helmet had descended over his white brow there was no longer any Perseus to be seen! Nothing but empty air! Even the helmet that covered him with its invisibility had vanished ! “Where are you, Perseus?” asked Quick- silver, “Why, here to be sure!” answered Perseus very quietly, although his voice seemed to come outof the transparent atmosphere. “Just where I was a moment ago. Don’t you see me?” “No, indeed!” answered his friend. “You are hidden under the helmet. But if I cannot see you, neither can the Gorgons. Follow me, therefore, and we will try your dexterity in using the winged slippers.” With these words Quicksilver’s cap spread its wings, as if his head were about to fly away from his shoulders; but his whole figure rose lightly into the air, and Perseus followed. By the time they had ascended a few hundred feet the young man began to feel what adelight-40 A WONDER BOOK. ful thing it was to leave the dull earth so far beneath him and to be able to flit about like a bird. It was now deep night. Perseus looked up- ward and saw the round, bright, silvery moon, and thought that he should desire nothing better than tosoar up thither and spend his life there. Then he looked downward again and saw the earth, with its seas and lakes, and the silver courses of its rivers, and its snowy mountain peaks, and the breadth of its fields, and the dark cluster of its woods, and its cities of white marble; and, with the moonshine sleeping over the whole scene, it was as beautiful as the moon or any star could be. And, among other objects, he saw the island of Seriphus, where his dear mother was. Sometimes he and Quick. silver approached a cloud that at a distance looked as if it were made of fleecy silver, although when they plunged into it they found themselves chilled and moistened with eray mist. So swift was their flight, however, that in an instant they emerged from the cloud into the moonlight again. Oncea high-soaring eagleA WONDER BOOK. 41 flew right against the invisible Perseus. The bravest sights were the meteors that oleamed suddenly out as if a bonfire had been kindled in the sky, and made the moonshine pale for as much as a hundred miles around them. As the two companions flew onward Perseus fancied that he could hear the rustle of a gar: ment close by his side; and it was on the side opposite to the one where he beheld Quick. silver, yet only Quicksilver was visible. “Whose garment is this,” inquired Perseus, “that keeps rustling close beside me in the breeze 2” “Oh, it is my sister’s,” answered Quicksilver. “She is coming along with us, as I told you she would. We could do nothing without the help of my sister. You have no idea how wise she is. She has such eyes, too! Why, she can see you at this moment just as distinctly as if you were not invisible, and I'll venture to say she will be the first to discover the Gorgons.” By this time, in their swift voyage through the air, they had come within sight of the great ocean, and were soon flying overit. Far beneath42 A WONDER BOOK. them the waves tossed themselves tumultuously in mid-sea, or rolled a white surfline upon the long beaches, or foamed against the rocky cliffs with a roar that was thunderous in the lower world, although it became a gentle murmur, like the voice of a baby haltf-asleep, before it reached the ears of Perseus. Just then a voice spoke in the air close by him. It seemed to be a woman's voice, and was melodious, though not exactly what might be called sweet, but grave and mild. “Perseus,” said the voice, “there are the Gorgons.” “ Where 2” exclaimed Perseus. “I cannot see them.” “On the shore of that island beneath you,” replied the voice. “A pebble dropped from your hand would strike in the midst of them.” “T told you she would be the first to discover them,” said Quicksilver to Perseus. “ And there they are!” Straight downward, two or three thousand feet below him, Perseus perceived a small island with the sea breaking into white foam all aroundA WONDER BOOK. 43 its rocky shore except on one side, where there was a beach of snowy sand. He descended toward it, and looking earnestly at a cluster or heap of brightness at the foot of a precipice of black rocks, behold, there were the terrible Gorgons! They lay fast asleep, soothed by the thunder of the sea, for it required a tumult that would have deafened every body else to lull such fierce creatures into slumber. The moon- hight glistened on their steely scales and on their golden wings, which drooped idly over the sand. Their brazen claws, horrible to look at, were thrust out and clutched the wave- beaten fragments of rock, while the sleeping Gorgons dreamed of tearing some poor mortal all to pieces. The snakes that served them in- stead of hair seemed likewise to be asleep, although now and then one would writhe and lift its head and thrust out its forked tongue, emitting a drowsy hiss, and then let itself sub- side among its sister snakes. ~The Gorgons were more like an awful, gigantic kind of insect—immense golden-winged beetles or dragon-flies or things of that sort, at44 A WONDER BOOK. once ugly and beautiful—than like anything else, only that they were a thousand and a mil- lion times as big. And, with all this, there was something partly human about them _ too. Luckily for Perseus, their faces were completely hidden from him by the posture in which they lay, for had he but looked one instant at them he would have fallen heavily out of the air, an image of senseless stone. “Now,” whispered Quicksilver as he hovered by the side of Perseus—“ now is your time to do the deed! Be quick, for 1f one of the Gor- gons should awake, you are too late.” “Which shall I strike at?” asked Perseus, drawing his sword and descending a little lower. “They all three look alike. All three have snaky locks. Which of the three is Medusa?” It must be understood that Medusa was the only one of these dragon-monsters whose head Perseus could possibly cut off. As for the other two, let him have the sharpest sword that ever was forged, and he might have hacked away by the hour together without doing them the least harm.A WONDER BOOK. 45 “ Be cautious,” said the calm voice which had before spoken to him. “ One of the Gorgons is stirring in her sleep, and is just about to turn over. That is Medusa. Do not look at her. The sight would turn you to stone. Look at the reflection of her face and figure in the bright mirror of your shield.” Perseus now understood Quicksilver’s motive for so earnestly exhorting him to polish his shield. In its surface he could safely look at the reflection of the Gorgon’s face. And there it was, that terrible countenance, mirrored in the brightness of the shield, with the moonlight falling over it and displaying all its horror. The snakes, whose venomous natures could not altogether sleep, kept twisting themselves over the forehead. It was the fiercest and most horrible face that ever was seen or imagined, and yet with a strange, fearful, and savage kind of beauty in it. The eyes were closed and the Gorgon was still in a deep slumber, but there was an unquiet expression disturbing her features, as if the monster was troubled with an ugly disturbingdream. She gnashed her white46 A WONDER BOOK. tusks and dug into the sand with her brazen claws. The snakes, too, seemed to feel Medusa’s dream and to be made more restless by it. They twined themselves into tumultuous knots, writhed fiercely, and uplifted a hundred hissing heads without opening their eyes. “Now, now!” whispered Quicksilver, who was growling impatient. “Make adash at the monster !” “But be calm,” said the grave, melodious voice at the young man’s side. ‘Look in your shield as you fly downward, and take care that you do not miss your first stroke.” Perseus flew cautiously downward, still keep- ing his eyes on Medusa’s face as reflected in his shield. The nearer he came the more terrible did the snaky visage and metallic body of the monster grow. At last, when he found himself hovering over her within arm’s length, Perseus uplifted his sword, while at the same instant each separate snake upon the Gorgon’s head stretched threateningly upward and Medusa unelosed her eyes. But she awoke too late.A WONDER BOOK. AY The sword was sharp, the stroke fell like a hghtning-flash, and the head of the wicked Medusa tumbled from her body. “Admirably done!” cried Quicksilver. “Make haste and clap the head into your magic wallet.” To the astonishment of Perseus, the small embroidered wallet which he had hung about his neck, and which had hitherto been no bigger than a purse, grew all at once large enough to contain Medusa’s head. As quick as thought he snatched it up, with the snakes still writh- ing upon it, and thrust it in. “Your task is done,” said the calm voice. “Now fly, for the other Gorgons will do their utmost to take vengeance for Medusa’s death.” It was indeed necessary to take flight, for Perseus had not done the deed so quietly but that the clash of his sword and the hissing of the snakes and the thump of Medusa’s head as it tumbled upon the sea-beaten sand awoke the other two monsters. There they sat for an instant, sleepily rubbing their eyes with their brazen fingers, while all the snakes on their48 A WONDER BOOK. heads reared themselves on end with surprise and with venomous malice against they knew not what. But when the Gorgons saw the scaly carcass of Medusa headless, and her golden wings all ruffled and half-spread out on the sand, it was really awful to hear what yells and screeches they set up. And then the snakes! They sent forth a hundred-fold hiss with one consent, and Medusa’s snakes answered them out of the magic wallet. No sooner were the Gorgons awake than they hurtled upward into the air, brandishing their brass talons, gnashing their horrible tusks, and flapping their huge wings so wildly that some of the golden feathers were shaken out and floated down upon the shore. And there, perhaps, those very feathers lie scattered till] this day. Up rose the Gorgons, as I tell you, staring horribly about in hopes of turning some: body to stone. Had Perseus looked them in the face, or had he fallen into their clutches, his poor mother would never have kissed her boy again. But he took good care to turn his eyes another way, and as he wore the helmet ofA WONDER BOOK. 49 invisibility, the Gorgons knew not in what direction to follow him; nor did he fail to make the best use of the winged slippers by soaring upward a perpendicular mile or so. At that height, when the screams of those abominable creatures sounded faintly beneath him, he made a straight course for the island of Seriphus, in order to carry Medusa’s head to King Polydectes. I have no time to tell you of several marvel- ous things that befell Perseus on his way home- ward, such as his killing a hideous sea-monster just as it was on the point of devouring a beau- tiful maiden, nor how hé changed an enormous giant into a mountain of stone merely by show- ing him the head of the Gorgon. If you doubt this latter story, you may make a voyage to Africa some day or other and see the very mountain, which is still known by the ancient glant’s name. Finally, our brave Perseus arrived at the island, where he expected to see his dear mother. But during his absence the wicked king had treated Danaé so very ill that she was com-50 A WONDER BOOK. pelled to make her escape, and had taken refuge in a temple, where some good old priests were extremely kind to her. These praiseworthy priests and the kind-hearted fisherman who had first shown hospitality to Danaé and little Per- seus when he found them afloat in the chest, seem to have been the only persons on the island who cared about doing nght. All the rest of the people, as well as King Polydectes himself, were remarkably ill-behaved, and deserved no better destiny than that which was now to happen. Not finding his mother at home, Perseus went straight to the palace and was immediately ushered into the presence of the king. Poly- dectes was by no means rejoiced to see him, for he had felt almost certain in his own evil mind that the Gorgons would have torn the poor youn 9 man to pieces and have eaten him up out of the way. However, seeing him safely returned, he put the best face he could upon the matter and asked Perseus how he had succeeded. “Have you performed your promise?” in- quired he. “Have you brought me the head ofA WONDER BOOK. ot Medusa with the snaky locks? If not, young man, it will cost you dear, for I must have a bridal present for the beautiful Princess Hippo- damia, and there is nothing else that she would admire so much.” “Yes, please your majesty,” answered Per. seus in a quiet way, as if it were no very wonderful deed for such a young man as he to perform. “I have brought you the Gorgon’s head, snaky locks, and all.” “Indeed! Pray let me see it,” quoth King Polydectes. “It must be a very curious spec- tacle, if all that travelers tell about it be true.” “Your majesty is in the right,” replied Perseus. “It is really an object that will be pretty certain to fix the regards of all who look at it. And, if your majesty think fit, I would suggest that a holiday be proclaimed, and that all your majesty’s subjects be summoned to be- hold this wonderful curiosity. Few of them, I imagine, have seen a Gorgon’s head before, and perhaps never may again.” The king well knew that his subjects were an idle set of reprobates and very fond of sight-oa A WONDER BOOK. seeing, as idle persons usually are. So he took the young man’s advice and sent out heralds and messengers in all directions to blow the trumpet at.the street corners and in the market-places and wherever two roads met, and summon everybody to court. Thither, accordingly, came a great multitude of good-for-nothing vaga- bonds, all of whom, out of pure love of mischief, would have been glad if Perseus had met with some ill-hap in his encounter with the Gorgons. If there were any better people in the island (as I really hope there may have been, although the story tells nothing about any such), they stayed quietly at home, minding their own busi- ness and taking care of their little children, Most of the inhabitants, at all events, ran as fast as they could to the palace, and shoved and pushed and elbowed one another in their eager: ness to get near a baleony on which Perseus showed himself holding the embroidered wallet in his hand. On a platform within full view of the balcony sat the mighty King Polydectes, amid his evi] counselors and with his flattering courtiers in aA WONDER BOOK. 53 semicircle round about him. Monarch, coun- selors, courtiers, and subjects all gazed eagerly toward Perseus. “Show us the head! Show us the head!” shouted the people; and there was a fierceness in their cry, as if they would tear Perseus to pieces unless he should satisfy them with what he had to show. “Show us the head of Medusa with the snaky locks !” A feeling of sorrow and pity came over the youthful Perseus. “Oh, King Polydectes,” cried he, “and ye many people, I am very loath to show you the Gorgon’s head.” “Ah, the villain and coward!” yelled the people more fiercely than before. “He is mak: ing game of us! He has no Gorgon’s head! Show us the head if you have it, or we will take your own head for a football !” The evil counselors whispered bad advice in the king’s ear; the courtiers murmured, with one consent, that Perseus had shown disrespect to their loyal lord and master; and the great King Polydectes himself waved his hand and54 A WONDER BOOK. ordered him, with the stern, deep voice of authority, on his peril to produce the head : “Show me the Gorgon’s head or I will cut off your own !” And Perseus sighed. “This instant,” repeated Polydectes, “or you die “Behold it, then!” cried Perseus, in a voice like the blast of a trumpet. And, suddenly holding up the head, not an eyelid had time to wink before the wicked King Polydectes, his evil counselors, and all his fierce subjects were no longer anything but the mere images of amonarch and his people. They were all fixed forever in the look and attitude of that moment. At the first glimpse of the ter- rible head of Medusa they whitened into marble. And Perseus thrust the head back into his wallet and went to tell his dear mother that she need no longer be afraid of the wicked King Polydectes.A WONDER BOOK. TANGLEWOOD PORCH. AFTER THE STORY. “Was not that a very fine story 2” Eustace. asked “Oh, yes, yes!” cried Cowslip, clapping her hands. “And those funny old women with only one eye among them! I never heard of anything so strange.” “As to their one tooth, which they shifted about,” observed Primrose, “there was nothing So very wonderful in that. J suppose it was a false tooth. But think of your turning Mercury into Quicksilver, and talking about his sister! You are too ridiculous!” “ And was she not his sister 2” asked Eustace bright. “If Thad thought of it sooner I would have described her as a maiden lady who kept a pet owl.”56 A WONDER BOOK. “Well, at any rate,” said Primrose, “your story seems to have driven away the mist.” And, indeed, while the tale was going for- ward the vapors had been quite exhaled from the landscape. A scene was now disclosed which the spectators might almost fancy as having been created since they had last looked in the direction where it lay. About half a mile distant, in the lap of the valley, now ap- peared a beautiful lake which reflected a perfect image of its own wooded banks and of the summits of the more distant hills. It gleamed in glassy tranquillity, without the trace of a winged breeze on any part of its bosom. Be- yond its further shore was Monument Mountain in a recumbent position, stretching almost across the valley. Eustace Bright compared it to a huge headless sphinx wrapped in a Persian shawl; and, indeed, so rich and diversified was the autumnal foliage of its woods that the simile of the shawl was by no means too high-colored for the reality. In the lower ground, between Tanglewood and the lake, the clumps of trees and borders of woodland were chiefly golden-A WONDER BOOK, a” leaved or dusky brown, as having suffered more from frost than the foliage on the hill. sides. Over all this scene there was a genial sun- shine, intermingled with a slight haze which made it unspeakably soft and tender. Oh, what a day of Indian summer was it going to be! The children snatched their baskets, and set forth with hop, skip, and jump, and all sorts of frisks and gambols, while Cousin Eustace proved his fitness to preside over the party by outdoing all their antics and performing several new capers which none of them could ever hope to imitate. Behind went a good old dog whose name was Ben. He was one of the most respect- able and kind-hearted of quadrupeds, and probably felt it to be his duty not to trust the children away from their parents without some better guardian than this feather-brained Eustace Bright.A WONDER BOOK. SHADOW BROOK. INTRODUCTORY TO “THE GOLDEN TOUCH.” AT noon our juvenile party assembled ina dell through the depths of which ran a little brook. The dell was narrow, and _ its steep sides, from the margin of the stream upward, were thickly set with trees, chiefly walnuts and chestnuts, among which grew a few oaks and maples. In the summer-time the shade of so many clustering branches meeting and _inter- mingling across the rivulet was deep enough to produce a noontide twilight. Hence came the name of Shadow Brook. But now, ever since autumn had crept into this secluded place, all the dark verdure was changed to gold, so that it really kindled up the dell, instead of shading it. The bright yellow leaves, even had it been a cloudy day, would have seemed to keep theA WONDER BOOK. 59 sunlight among them; and enough of them had fallen to strew all the bed and margin of the brook with sunlight too. Thus the shady nook where summer had cooled herself was now the sunniest spot anywhere to be found. The little brook ran along over its pathway of gold, here pausing to form a pool in which minnows were darting to and fro, and then it hurried onward at a swifter pace, as if in haste to reach the lake, and, forgetting to look whither it went, it tumbled over the root of a tree which stretched quite acrossitscurrent. You would have laughed to hear how noisily it babbled about this accident. And even after it had run on- ward the brook still kept talking to itself, as if it were in a maze. It was wonder-smitten, I suppose, at finding its dark dell so illuminated and at hearing the prattle and merriment of so many children. So it stole away as quickly as it could and hid itself in the lake. In the dell of Shadow Brook Eustace Bright and his little friends had eaten their dinner. They had brought plenty of good things from Tanglewood ia their baskets, and had spread60 A WONDER BOOK. them out on the stumps of trees and on mossy trunks, and had feasted merrily and made a very nice dinner indeed. After it was over nobody felt like stirring. “We will rest ourselves here,” said several of the children, “while Cousin Eustace tells us another of his pretty stories.” Cousin Eustace had a good right to be tired as well as the children, for he had performed great feats on that memorable forenoon. Dande- lion, Clover, Cowslip, and Buttercup were almost persuaded that he had winged slippers like those which the Nymphs gave Perseus, so often had the student shown himself at the tip- top of a nut tree, when only a moment before he had been standing on the ground. And then what showers of walnuts had he sent rattling down upon their heads for their busy little hands to gather into the baskets! In short, he had been as active as a squirrel or a monkey, and now, flinging himself down on the yellow leaves, seemed inclined to take a little rest. But children have no mercy nor consideration for anybody’s weariness, and if you had but aA WONDER BOOK. 61 single breath left they would ask you to spend it in telling them a story. “Cousin Eustace,” said Cowslip, “that was a very nice story of the Gorgon’s Head. Do you think you could tell us another as good 2” “Yes, child,” said Eustace, pulling the brim of his cap over his eyesas if preparing for a nap. “T can tell you a dozen as good or better, if I choose.” “Oh, Primrose and Periwinkle, do you hear what he says?’ cried Cowslip, dancing with delight. “Cousin Eustace is going to tell us dozen better stories than that about the Gor- gon’s Head !” “TJ did not promise you even one, you foolish little Cowslip!” said Eustace, half-pettishly. “ However, I suppose you must have it. This is the consequence of having earned a reputation. I wish I were a great deal duller than I am, or that I had never shown half the bright qualities with which Nature has endowed me, and then I might have my nap out in peace and comfort.” But Cousin Eustace, as I think I have hinted before, was as fond of telling his stories as the62 A WONDER BOOK. children of hearing them. His mind was in a free and happy state and took delight in its own activity, and scarcely required any external im- pulse to set it at work. How different is this spontaneous play of the intellect from the trained diligence of maturer years, when toil has perhaps grown easy by long habit, and the day’s work may have become essential to the day’s comfort, although the rest of the matter has bubbled away! This re mark, however, is not meant for the children to hear. Without further solicitation Eustace Bright proceeded to tell the following really splendid story. It had come into his mind as he lay looking upward into the depths of a tree and observing how the touch of autumn had trans muted every one of its green leaves into what resembled the purest gold. And this change, which we have all of us witnessed, is as wonder- ful as anything that Eustace told about in the story of Midas,THE GOLDEN A WONDER BOOK, TOUCH. OncE upon a time there lived a very rich man, and a king besides, Midas; and he had a little whose name was daughter whom no- body but myself ever heard of, and whose name I either never knew or have entirely forgotten. So, because I love odd names for little girls, I choose to call her Mar ‘ygold. This King Midas was fonder of gold than of anything else in the world. He valued his royal crown chiefly because it was composed of that precious metal. If he loved anything better or half so well, it was the one little maiden who played so merrily around her father’s footstool. But the more Midas loved his daughter, the more did he desire and seek for wealth. He thought, foolish man! that the best thing he could possibly do for this dear child would be to bequeath her the immensest pile of yellowSSN A WONDER BOOK. 64 glistening coin that had ever been heaped together since the world was made. ‘Thus he gave all his thoughts and all his time to this one purpose. If he ever happened to gaze for an instant at the gold-tinted clouds of sunset, he wished that they were real gold and that they could be squeezed safely into his strong box. When little Marygold ran to meet him with a bunch of buttercups and dandelions he used to say: “Pooh, pooh, child! If these flowers were as golden as they look, they would be worth the plucking !” And yet in his earlier days, before he was so entirely possessed with this insane desire for riches, King Midas had shown a great taste for flowers. He had planted a garden in which grew the biggest and beautifulest and sweetest roses that any mortal ever saw or smelled. These roses were still growing in the garden, as large, as lovely, and as fragrant as when Midas used to pass whole hours in gazing at them and inhaling their perfume. But now, if he looked at them at all, it was only to calculate how much the garden would be worth if each of the innumer-A WONDER BOOK: 65 able rose-petals were a thin plate of gold. And though he once was fond of music (in spite of an idle story about his ears, which were said to resemble those of an ass), the only music for poor Midas now was the chink of one coin against another. At length (as people always grow more and more foolish unless they take care to grow wiser and wiser) Midas had got to be so exceed- ingly unreasonable that he could scarcely bear to see or touch any object that was not gold. He made it his custom, therefore, to pass a large portion of every day in a dark and dreary apart- ment underground, at the basement of his palace. It was here that he kept his wealth. To this dismal hole—for it was little better than a dun- geon— Midas betook himself whenever he wanted to be particularly happy. Here, after carefully locking the door, he would take a bag of gold coin, or a gold cup as big as a wash- bowl, or a heavy golden bar, or a peck measure of gold-dust, and bring it from the obscure cor: ners. of the room into the one bright and narrow sunbeam that fell from the dungeon-like win-66 A WONDER BOOK. dow. He valued the sunbeam for no other reason but that his treasure would not shine without its help. And then would he reckon over the coins in the bag, toss up the bar and catch it as it came down, sift the gold-dust through his fingers, look at the funny image of his own face as reflected in the burnished cir- cumterence of the cup, and whisper to himself: “Oh, Midas, rich King Midas, what a happy man art thou!” But it was laughable to see how the image of his face kept grinning at him out of the polished surface of the cup. It seemed to be aware of his foolish behavior, and to have a naughty inclination to make fun of him. Midas called himself a happy man, but felt that he was not yet quite so happy as he might be. The very tip-top of enjoyment would never be reached unless the whole world were to be- come his treasure-room and be filled with yellow metal which should be all his own. Now, I need hardly remind such wise little people as you are that in the old, old times, when King Midas was alive,a great many things came to pass which we should consider wonderful ifA WONDER BOOK, 67 mey were to happen in our own day and country. And, on the other hand, a great many things take place nowadays which seem not only wonderful to us, but at which the people of old times would have stared their eyes out. On the whole, I regard our own times as the strangest of the two; but, however that may be, I must go on with my story. Midas was enjoying himself in his treasure. room one day as usual, when he perceived a shadow fall over the heaps of gold, and, looking suddenly up, what should he behold but the figure of a stranger standing in the bright and narrow sunbeam! It was a young man with a cheerful and ruddy face. Whether it was that the imagination of King Midas threw a yellow tinge over everything, or whatever the cause might be, he could not help fancying that the smile with which the stranger regarded him had a kind of golden radiance in it. Certainly, although his figure intercepted the sunshine, there was now a brighter gleam upon all the piled-up treasures than before. Even the re- motest corners had their share of it, and wereA WONDER BOOK, 68 lighted up, when the stranger smiled, as with tips of flame and sparkles of fire. As Midas knew that he had carefully turned the key in the lock, and that no mortal strength could possibly break into his treasure-room, he of course concluded that his visitor must be something more than mortal. It is no matter about telling you who he was. In those days, when the earth was comparatively a new affair, it was supposed to be often the resort of beings endowed with supernatural powers, and who used to interest themselves in the joys and sor- rows of men, women, and children half-playfully and half-seriously. Midas had met such beings before now, and was not sorry to meet one of them again. The stranger’s aspect, indeed, was so good-humored and kindly, if not beneficent, that it would have been unreasonable to suspect him of intending any mischief. It was far more probable that he came to do Midas a favor. And what could that favor be unless to mul- tiply his heaps of treasure ? The stranger gazed about the room, and when his lustrous smile had glistened upon allA WONDER BOOK. 69 the golden objects that were there he turned again to Midas. “You are a wealthy man, friend Midas,” he observed. “I doubt whether any other four walls on earth contain so much gold as you have contrived to pile up in this room.” “YJ have done pretty well—pretty well,” answered Midas in a discontented tone. “But, after all, it is but a trifle when you consider that it has taken me my whole life to get it together. If one could live a thousand years, he might have time to grow rich.” “What!” exclaimed the stranger. “Then you are not satisfied 2” Midas shook his head. “ And pray what would satisfy you?” asked the stranger. “Merely for the curiosity of the thing, I should be glad to know.” Midas paused and meditated. He felt a pre- sentiment that this stranger, with such a golden luster in his good-humored smile, had come hither with both the power and the purpose of gratifying his utmost wishes. Now, therefore, was the fortunate moment when he had but to70 A WONDER BOOK. speak and obtain whatever possible or seemingly impossible thing it might come into his head to ask. So he thought, and thought, and thought, and heaped up one golden mountain upon an- other in his imagination, without being able to imagine them big enough. At last a bright idea occurred to King Midas. It seemed really as bright as the glistening metal which he loved so much. Raising his head, he looked the lustrous stranger in the face. “Well, Midas,” observed his visitor, “I see that you have at length hit upon something that will satisfy you. Tell me your wish.” “Tt is only this,” replied Midas: “I am weary of collecting my treasures with so much trouble, and beholding the heap so diminutive after I have done my best. I wish everything that I touch to be changed to gold.” The stranger’s smile grew so very broad that it seemed to fill the room like an outburst of the sun gleaming into a shadowy dell where the yellow autumnal leaves—for so looked theA WONDER BOOK. el lumps and particles of gold—lie strewn in the glow of light. “The Golden Touch !” exclaimed he. “Yoy certainly deserve credit, friend Midas, for strik- ing out so brilliant a conception. But are you quite sure that this wil] satisfy you 2” “ How could it fail 2” said Midas. “And will you never regret the possession ob 15?” “ What could induce me?” asked Midas. “J ask nothing else to render me perfectly happy.” “Be it as you wish, then,” rephed the stranger, waving his hand in token of farew ells Wo. morrow at sunrise you will find yourself oifted with the Golden Touch.” The figure of the stranger then became ex- ceedingly bright, and Midas involuntarily closed his eyes. On opening them again he beheld only one yellow sunbeam in the room, and all around him the glistening of the precious metal which he had spent his life in hoarding up. Whether Midas slept as usual that night the story does not say. Asleep or awake, however, his mind was probably in the state of a child’sie A WONDER BOOK. w/ to whom a beautiful new plaything has been promised in the morning. At any rate, day had hardly peeped over the hills when Kang Midas was broad awake, and stretching his arms out of bed, began to touch the objects that were within reach. He was anxious to prove whether the Golden Touch had really come, according to the stranger’s promise. So he laid his finger on a chair by the bedside and on various other things, but was grievously disap- pointed to perceive that they remained of exactly the same substance as before. Indeed, he felt very much afraid that he had only dreamed about the lustrous stranger, or else that the latter had been making game of him. And what a miserable affair would it be if, after all his hopes, Midas must content himself with what little gold he could scrape together by ordinary means instead of creating it by a touch. All this while it was only the gray of the morning, with but a streak of brightness along the edge of the sky, where Midas could-not see it. He lay in a very disconsolate mood, regret-A WONDER BOOK. 63) é ting the downfall of his hopes, and kept STOW- ing sadder and sadder until the earliest sunbeam shone through the window and gilded the ceil. ing over his head. It seemed to Midas that this bright yellow sunbeam was reflected in rather a singular way on the white covering of the bed. Looking more closely, what was his astonishment and delight when he found that this linen fabric had been transmuted to what seemed a woven texture of the purest and brightest gold! The Golden Touch had come to him with the first sunbeam! Midas started up in a kind of j joytul frenzy, and ran about the room grasping at everything that happened to be in his w ay. He seized one of the bed-posts, and it became immediately a fluted golden pular. He pulled aside a window- curtain in order to admit a clear spectacle of the wonders which he was performing, and the tassel grew heavy in his hand—a mass of gold. Hetook up a book from the table. At his first touch it assumed the appearance of such a splen- didly bound and gilt-edged volume as one often meets with nowadays, but on running hisU4. A WONDER BOOK. fingers through the leaves, behold! it was a bundle of thin golden plates in which all the wisdom of the book had grown illegible. He hurriedly put on his clothes, and was enraptured to see himself in a magnificent suit of gold cloth, which retained its flexibility and softness, although it burdened him a little with its weight. He drew out his handkerchief, which little Marygold had hemmed for him. ‘That was likewise gold, with the dear child’s neat and pretty stitches running all along the border in gold thread ! Somehow or other, this last transformation did not quite please King Midas. He would rather that his little daughter’s handiwork should have remained just the same as when she climbed his knee and put it into his hand. But it was not worth while to vex himself about a trifle. Midas now took his spectacles from his pocket, and put them on his nose in order that he might see more distinctly what he was about. In those days spectacles for com- mon people had not been invented, but were already worn by kings, else how could MidasA WONDER BOOK, re have had any? To his great perplexity, how. ever, excellent as the glasses were, he discovered that he could not possibly see through them. But this was the most natural thing in the world, for on taking them off the transparent crystals turned out to be plates of yellow metal, and of course were worthless as spectacles, though valuable as gold. It struck Midas as rather inconvenient that, with all his wealth, he could never again be rich enough to own a pair of serviceable spectacles. “Tt is no great matter, nevertheless,” said he to himself, very philosophically. “We cannot expect any great good without its being accom- panied with some small inconvenience. The Golden Touch is worth the sacrifice of a pair of spectacles at least, if not of one’s very eyesight. My own eyes will serve for ordinary purposes, and little Marygold will soon be old enough to read to me.” Wise King Midas was so exalted by his good fortune that the palace seemed not sufficiently spacious to contain him. He therefore went downstairs and smiled on observing that theSAAS CLS 76 A WONDER BOOK. ¢ balustrade of the staircase became a bar of burnished gold as his hand passed over it in his descent. He lifted the door-latch (at was brass only a moment ago, but golden when his fingers quitted it) and emerged into the garden. Here, as it happened, he found a great number of beautiful roses in full bloom and others in all the stages of lovely bud and blossom. Very delicious was their fragrance in the morning breeze. Their delicate blush was one of the fairest sights in the world, so gentle, so modest, and so full of sweet tranquillity did these roses seem to be. But Midas knew a way to make them far more precious, according to his way of thinking, than roses had ever been before. So he took great pains in going from bush to bush and ex- ercised his magic touch most indefatigably, until every individual flower and bud, and even the worms at the heart of some of them, were changed to gold. By the time this good work was completed King Midas was summoned to breakfast, and, as the morning air had givenA WONDER BOOK. Wy him an excellent appetite, he made haste back to the palace. What was usually a kine’s breakfast in the days of Midas I really do not know and cannot stop now to investigate. To the best of my be- lief, however, on this particular morning the breakfast consisted of hot cakes, some nice little brook trout, roasted potatoes, fresh boiled egos, and coffee for King Midas himself, and a bow] of bread and milk for his daughter Marygold. At all events, this is a breakfast fit to set before a king, and, whether he had it or not, King Midas could not have had a better. Little Marygold had not yet made her appear. ance. Her father ordered her to be called, and, seating himself at table, awaited the child’s coming in order to begin his own breakfast. To do Midas justice, he really loved his daughter, and loved her so much the more this morning on account of the good fortune which had be- fallen him. It was not a great while before he heard her coming along the passageway crying bitterly. This circumstance surprised hin, be- cause Marygold was one of the cheerfulest littleA WONDER BOOK. people whom you would see in a summer’s day, and hardly shed a thimbleful of tears in a twelvemonth. When Midas heard her sobs he determined to put little Marygold into better spirits by an agreeable surprise; so, leaning across the table, he touched his daughter’s bowl (which was a china one with pretty figures all around it) and transmuted it to gleaming gold. Meanwhile, Marygold slowly and_ disconso- lately opened the door and showed herself with her apron at her eyes, still sobbing as if her heart would break. “How now, my little lady!” cried Midas. “Pray what is the matter with you this bright morning ?” Marygold, without taking the apron from her eyes, held out her hand, in which was one of the roses which Midas had so recently transmuted. “Beautiful!” exclaimed her father. “ And what is there in this magnificent golden rose to make you cry 2” “Ah, dear father!” answered the child, as well as her sobs would let her, “it is not beau- tiful, but the ugliest flower that ever grew. AsA WONDER BOOK, 79 soon as I was dressed I ran into the garden to gather some roses for you, because I know you like them, and like them the better when gath- ered by your little daughter. But—oh dear! dear me !—what do you think has happened ? Puen a misfortune! All the beautiful roses, that smelled so sweetly and had so many lovely blushes, are blighted and spoiled! They are grown quite yellow, as you see this one, and have no longer any fragrance. What can be the matter with them 2” “Pooh, my dear little girl! pray don’t cry about it!” said Midas, who was ashamed to con- fess that he himself had wrought the change which so greatly afflicted her. “Sit down and eat your bread and milk. You will find it easy enough to exchange a golden rose like that, which will last hundreds of years, for an ordi- nary one, which would wither in a day.” “T don’t care for such roses as this!” cried Marygold, tossing it contemptuously away. “It has no smell, and the hard petals prick my nose.” The child now sat down to table, but was so80 A WONDER BOOK. occupied with her grief for the blighted roses that she did not even notice the wonderful transmutation of her china bowl. Perhaps this was all the better, for Marygold was accustomed to take pleasure in looking at the queer figures and strange trees and houses that were painted on the circumference of the bowl, and these ornaments were now entirely lost in the yellow hue of the metal. Midas, meanwhile, had poured out a cup of coffee ; and, as a matter of course, the coffee-pot, whatever metal 1t may have been when he took it up, was gold when he set it down. He thought to himself that it was rather an extray- agant style of splendor, in a king of his simple habits, to breakfast off a service of gold, and began to be puzzled with the difficulty of keep- ing his treasures safe. The cupboard and the kitchen would no longer be a secure place of deposit for articles so valuable as golden bowls and coffee-pots. Amid these thoughts he lifted a spoonful of coffee to his lips, and sipping it, was astonished to perceive that the instant his lips touched theA WONDER BOOK, 81 liquid it became molten gold, and the next moment hardened into a lump. “Ha!” exclaimed Midas, rather aghast. “What is the matter, father?” asked little Marygold, gazing at him with the tears still standing in her eyes. “ Nothing, child, nothing,” said Midas. “Eat your milk before it gets quite cold.” He took one of the nice little trouts on his plate, and, by way of experiment, touched its tail with his finger. To his horror, it was im- mediately transmuted from an admirably-fried brook trout into a gold fish, though not one of those gold fishes which people often keep in glass globes as ornaments for the parlor. No; but it was really a metallic fish, and looked as if it had been very cunningly made by the nicest goldsmith in the world. Its little bones were now golden wires, its fins and tail were thin plates of gold, and there were the marks of the fork in it, and all the delicate, frothy ap- pearance of a nicely-fried fish exactly imitated in metal. A very pretty piece of work, as you may suppose, only King Midas, just at that82 A WONDER BOOK. moment, would much rather have had a real trout in his dish than this elaborate and valuable imitation of one. “T don’t quite see,” thought he to himself “how I am to get any breakfast.” He took one of the smoking hot cakes, and had scarcely broken it when, to his cruel mor- tification, though a moment before it had been of the whitest wheat, it assumed the yellow hue of Indian meal. To say the truth, if 1 bad really been a hot Indian cake Midas would have prized it a good deal more than he now did, when its solidity and increased weight made him too bitterly sensible that it was gold. Almost in despair, he helped himself toa boiled egg, which immediately underwent a change similar to those of the trout and the cake. The ego, indeed, might have been mistaken for one of those which the famous goose in the story- book was in the habit of laying; but King Midas was the only goose that had had anything to do with the matter. “Well, this isa quandary !” thought he, lean- ing back in his chair and looking quite envi-A WONDER BOOK. $3 ously at little Marygold, who was now eating her bread and milk with great satisfaction. “Such a costly breakfast before me, and nothing that can be eaten !” Hoping that, by dint of great dispatch, he might avoid what he now felt to be a consider- able inconvenience, King Kidas next snatched a hot potato, and attempted to cram it into his mouth and swallow it in a hurry. But the Golden Touch was too nimble for him. He found his mouth full, not of mealy potato, but of solid metal, which so burned his tongue that he roared aloud, and, jumping up from the table, began to dance and stamp about the room both with pain and affright. “ather, dear father!” cried little Marygold, who was a very affectionate child, “pray what is the matter? Have you burned your mouth ?” “Ah, dear child,” groaned Midas dolefully, “T don’t know what is to become of your poor father.” And truly, my dear little folks, did you ever hear of such a pitiable case in all your lives? Here was literally the richest breakfast thatBOOK. A WONDER could be set before a king, and its very richness made it absolutely good for nothing. The poorest laborer sitting down to his crust of bread and cup of water was far better off than King Midas, whose delicate food was really worth its weight in gold. And what was to be done? Already, at breakfast, Midas was ex- cessively hungry. Would he be less so by dinner-time? And how ravenous would be his appetite for supper, which must undoubtedly consist of the same sort of indigestible dishes as those now before bin! How many days, think you, would he survive a continuance of this rich fare ¢ These reflections so troubled wise King Midas that he began to doubt whether, after all, riches are the one desirable thing in the world, or even the most desirable. But this was only a passing thought. So fascinated was Midas with the glitter of the yellow metal that he would still have refused to give up the Golden Touch for so paltry a consideration as a breakfast. Just imagine what a price for one meal’s victuals! It would have been the same as paying millionsA WONDER BOOK. = 85 and millions of money (and as many millions more as would take forever to reckon up) for some fried trout, an egg, a potato, a hot cake, and a cup of coffee. “It would be quite too dear,” thought Midas. Nevertheless, so great was his hunger and the perplexity of his situation that he again oroaned aloud, and very grievously too. Our pretty Marygold could endure it no longer. She sata moment gazing at her father and trying with all the might of her little wits to find out what was the matter with him. Then, with a sweet and sorrowful impulse to comfort him, she started from her chair, and, running to Midas, threw her arms affectionately about his knees. He bent dewn and kissed her. He felt that his little daughter’s love was worth a thousand times more than he had gained by the Golden Touch. “My precious, precious Marygold !” cried he. But Marygold made no answer. Alas, what had he done? How fatal was the gift which the stranger bestowed! The mo- ment the lips of Midas touched Marygold’sA WONDER BOOK. 86 forehead a change had taken place. Her sweet, rosy face, so full of affection as it had been, assumed a glittering yellow color, with yellow tear-drops congealing on her cheeks. Her beau- tiful brown ringlets took the same tint. Her soft and tender little form grew hard and inflexible within her father’s encircling arms. Oh, terrible misfortune! ‘The victim of his insatiable desire for wealth, little Marygold, was a human child no longer, but a golden statue ! Yes, there she was, with the questioning look of love, grief, and pity hardened into her face. It was the prettiest and most woeful sight that ever mortal saw. All the features and tokens of Marygold were there, even the beloved little dimple remained in her golden chin. But the more perfect was this resemblance the greater was the father’s agony at beholding this golden image, which was all that was left him of a daughter. It had been a favorite phrase of Midas whenever he felt particularly fond of the child, to say that she was worth her weight in gold. And now the phrase had become literally true. And now at last, when it was too late, heA WONDER BOOK. 87 felt how infinitely a warm and tender heart that loved him exceeded in value all the wealth that could be piled up betwixt the earth and sky. It would be too sad a story if I were to tell you how Midas, in the fullness of al] his grati- fied desires, began to wring his hands and bemoan himself, and how he could neither bear to look at Marygold, nor yet to look away from her. Except when his eyes were fixed on the image he could not possibly believe that she was changed to gold. But, stealing another glance, there was the precious little figure, with a yellow tear-drop on its yellow cheek, and a look so piteous and tender that it seemed as if that very expression must needs soften the gold and make it flesh again. This, however, could not be. So Midas had only to wring his hands and to wish that he were the poorest man in the wide world if the loss of all his wealth might bring back the faintest rose-color to his dear child’s face. While he was in this tumult of despair he suddenly beheld a stranger standing near theA WONDER BOOK. 88 door. Midas bent down his head without speak- ing, for he recognized the same figure which had appeared to him the day before in the treasure- room and had bestowed on him this disastrous faculty of the Golden Touch. The stranger’s countenance still wore a smile which seemed to shed a yellow luster all about the room, and gleamed on little Marygold’s image and on the other objects that had been transmuted by the touch of Midas. “Well, friend Midas,” said the stranger, “pray how do you succeed with the Golden Touch 2” | Midas shook his head. “JT am very miserable,” said he. “Very miserable, indeed!” exclaimed the stranger. “And how happens that? Have I not faithfully kept my promise with you ? Have you not everything that your heart desired ?” “Gold is not everything,” answered Midas, “and I have lost all that my heart really cared tor.” “Ah! so you have made a discovery sinceA (| EA sy Hoe H fs 4704 Wi fp LH /}} LHL “Sh i \\ AN iis ; ( r AYN — —S Hy fi SSS se ea oO Us ease eg VEE TT Zs ct OSI, Ugo Ly iY oe. Wythe LT THT ei EE : HH, I FA (ZZ en ey LY} Let “You are wiser than you were, King Midas,” said the Stranger, looking . . 2 seriously at him.—Page 89,OEE NN N Y ‘ aSA WONDER BOOK. 89 yesterday?” observed the stranger, “Let us see, then. Which of these two things do you think is really worth the most—the gift of the Golden Touch or one cup of clear cold water 2” “Oh, blessed water!” exclaimed Midas. “It will never moisten my parched throat again,” “The Golden Touch,” continued the stranger, “or a crust of bread 2” “A piece of bread,” answered Midas, “is worth all the gold on earth.” “The Golden Touch,” asked the stranger, “or your own little Marygold, warm, soft, and loving, as she was an hour ago?” “Oh, my child, my dear child!” cried poor Midas, wringing his hands. “I would not have given that one small dimple in her chin for the power of changing this whole big earth into a solid lump of gold !” “You are wiser than you were, King Midas,” said the stranger, looking seriously at him. “Your own heart, I perceive, has not been en- tirely changed from flesh to gold. Were it so, your case would indeed be desperate. But you appear to be still capable of understanding that90 A WONDER BOOK. the commonest things, such as he within every- body’s grasp, are more valuable than the riches which so many mortals sigh and struggle atter. Tell me now, do you sincerely desire to rid yourself of this Golden Touch ?” “Tt is hateful to me!” replied Midas. A fly settled on his nose, but immediately fell to the floor, for it, too, had become gold. Midas shuddered. “Go, then,” said the stranger, “and plunge into the river that glides past the bottom of your garden. ‘Take likewise a vase of the same water, and sprinkle it over any object that you may desire to change back again from gold into its former substance. If you do this in earnest- ness and sincerity, it may possibly repair the mischief which your avarice has occasioned.” King Midas bowed low, and when he lifted his head the lustrous stranger had vanished. You will easily believe that Midas lost no time in snatching up a great earthen pitcher (but, alas me! it was no longer earthen after he touched it) and hastening to the riverside. As he scampered along and forced his way throughA WONDER BOOK, att the shrubbery, it was positively marvelous to see how the foliage turned yellow behind him, as if the autumn had been there and nowhere else, On reaching the river’s brink he plunged head- long in, without Waiting so much as to pull off his shoes. “Poof! poof! poof!” snorted King Midas, as his head emerged out of the water. “Well, this is really a refreshing bath, and I think it must have quite washed away the Golden Touch. And now for filling my pitcher.” As he dipped the pitcher into the water it gladdened his very heart to see it change from gold into the same good, honest earthen vessel which it had been before he touched it. He. was conscious also of a change within himself. A cold, hard, and heavy weight seemed to have gone out of his bosom. No doubt his heart had been gradually losing its human substance and transmuting itself into insensible metal, but had now softened back again into flesh. Perceiving a violet that grew on the bank of the river, Midas touched it with his finger, and was over- joyed to find that the delicate flower retainedA WONDER BOOK. its purple hue, instead of undergoing a yellow blight. The curse of the Golden ‘Touch had therefore really been removed from him. King Midas hastened back to the palace, and I suppose the servants knew not what to make of it when they saw their royal master so care- fully bringing home an earthen pitcher of water. But that water, which was to undo all the mis- chief that his folly had wrought, was more precious to Midas than an ocean of molten gold could have been. The first thing he did, as you need hardly be told, was to sprinkle it by hand- fuls over the golden figure of little Marygold. No sooner did it fall on her than you would have laughed to see how the rosy color came back to the dear child’s cheek, and how she began to sneeze and sputter, and how astonished she was to find herself dripping wet and her father still throwing more water over her. !” eried she. “See “Pray do not, dear father how you have wet my nice frock, which I put on only this morning.” For Marygold did not know that she had been a little golden statue, nor could she rememberA WONDER BOOK. 93 anything that had happened since the moment when she ran with outstretched arms to comfort poor King Midas. Her father did not think it necessary to tell his beloved child how very foolish he had been, but contented himself with showing how much wiser he had now grown. For this purpose he led little Marygold into the garden, where he sprinkled all the remainder of the water over the rose-bushes, and with such good effect that above five thousand roses recovered their beau- tiful bloom. There were two circumstances, however, which, as long as he lived, used to put King Midas in mind of the Golden Touch. One was that the sands of the river sparkled like gold; the other, that little Marygold’s hair had now a golden tinge which he had never observed in it before she had been transmuted by the effect of his kiss. The change of hue was really an improvement, and made Marygold’s hair richer than in her babyhood. When King Midas had grown quite an old man and used to trot Marygold’s children on his knee, he was fond of telling them thisA WONDER BOOK. marveious story, pretty much as I have now told it to you. And then would he stroke their glossy ringlets and tell them that their hair like- wise had a rich shade of gold, which they had inherited from their mother. “And, to tell you the truth, my precious little folks,” quoth King Midas, diligently trot- ting the children all the while, “ever since that morning I have hated the very sight of all other gold save this,”A WONDER BOOK, SHADOW BROOK, AFTER THE STORY. “Wet, children,” inquired Eustace, who was very fond of eliciting a definite Opinion from his auditors, “ did you ever, in all your lives, listen toa better story than this of ‘ The Golden Touch’? 2” “Why, as to the story of King Midas,” said saucy Primrose, “it was a famous one thou- sands of years before Mr. Eustace Bright came into the world, and will continue to be so long after he quits it. But some people have what we may call ‘The Leaden Touch,’ and make everything dull and heavy that they lay their fingers upon.” “You are a smart child, Primrose, to be not yet in your teens,” said Eustace, taken rather aback by the piquancy of her criticism. “But you well know, in your naughty little heart,96 A WONDER BOOK. that I have burnished the old gold of Midas all over anew, and have made it shine as it never shone before. And then that figure of Mary- gold! Do you perceive no nice workmanship in that? And how finely I have brought out and deepened the moral!—What say you, Sweet Fern, Dandelion, Clover, Periwinkle ? Would any of you, after hearing this story, be so foolish as to desire the faculty of changing things to gold?” “JT should like,” said Periwinkle, a girl of ten, “to have the power of turning everything to gold with my right forefinger, but with my left forefinger I should want the power of changing it back again if the first change did not please me. And I know what I would do this very afternoon.” “Pray tell me,” said Hustace. “Why,” answered Periwinkle, “I would touch every one of these golden leaves on the trees with my left forefinger and make them all green again, so that we might have the summer back at once, with no ugly winter in the meantime.”A WONDER BOOK, 97 “Oh, Periwinkle!” cried Eustace Bright, “there you are wrong, and would do a great deal of mischief. Were I Midas, I would make nothing else but just such golden days as these, over and over again, all the year throughout. My best thoughts always come a little too late. Why did not I tell you how old King Midas came to America and: changed the dusky autumn, such as it is in other countries, into the burnished beauty which it here puts on? He gilded the leaves of the great volume of nature.” “Cousin Eustace,” said Sweet Fern, a good little boy who was always making particular inquiries about the precise height of giants and the littleness of fairies, “ how big was Marygold, and how much did she weigh after she was turned to gold ?” “She was about as tall as you are,” replied Kustace, “and, as gold is very heavy, she weighed at least two thousand pounds, and might have been coined into thirty or forty thousand gold dollars. I wish Primrose were worth half as much. Come, little people, let us clamber out of the dell and look about us.”98 A WONDER BOOK. They did so. The sun was now an hour or two beyond its noontide mark, and filled the oreat hollow of the valley with its western radiance, so that 1t seemed to be brimming with mellow hght, and to spill it over the surround- ing hillsides like golden wine out of a bowl. It was such a day that you could not help say- ing of it, “here never was such a day before !” although yesterday was just such a day, and to- morrow will be just such another. Ah, but there are very few of them in a twelvemonth’s circle! It is a remarkable peculiarity of these October days that each of them seems to occupy a great deal of space, although the sun rises rather tardily at that season of the year, and goes to bed, as little children ought, at sober six o'clock, or even earlier. We cannot there- fore call the days long, but they appear, some- how or other, to make up for their shortness by their breadth, and when the cool night comes we are conscious of having enjoyed a big arm- ful of life since morning. “Come, children, come!” cried Eustace Bright. ‘More nuts, more nuts, more nuts!A WONDER BOOK. 39 Fill all your baskets, and at Christmas-time i will crack them for you and tell you beautiful stories.” So away they went, all of them in excellent splits, except little Dandelion, who, I am Sorry to tell you, had been sitting on a chestnut-burr, and was stuck as full as a pincushion of its prickles. Dear me, how uncomfortably he must have felt !A WONDER BOOK. TANGLEWOOD PLAYROOM. INTRODUCTORY TO “THE PARADISE OF CHII+ DREN.” Tne golden days of October passed away, as so many other Octobers have, and brown No- vember likewise, and the greater part of chill December too. At last came merry Christmas, and Eustace Bright along with it, making it all the merrier by his presence, and the day after his arrival from college there came a mighty snowstorm. Up to this time the winter had held back, and had given us a good many mild days which were like smiles upon its wrinkled visage. The grass had kept itself green in sheltered places, such as the nooks of southern hillslopes and along the lee of the stone fences. It was but a week or two ago, and since the beginning of the month, that the children hadA WONDER BOOK, 101 found a dandelion in bloom, on the marein of Shadow Brook where it glides out of the dell. But no more green grass and dandelions now. This was such a snowstorm! Twenty miles of it might have been visible at once, between the windows of Tanglewood and the dome of Taconic, had it been possible to see so far among the eddying drifts that whitened all the atmosphere. It seemed as if the hills were oiants, and were flinging monstrous handfuls of snow at one another in their enormous sport, So thick were the fluttering snowflakes that even the trees midway down the valley were hidden by them the greater part of the time. Sometimes, it is true, the little prisoners of Tanglewood could discern a dim outline of Monument Mountain, and the smooth whiteness of the frozen lake at its base, and the black or gray tracts of woodland in the nearer land- scape. But these were merely peeps through the tempest. Nevertheless, the children rejoiced greatly in the snowstorm. They had already made102 A WONDER BOOK. acquaintance with it by tumbling heels over head into its highest drifts, and flinging snow at one another, as we have just fancied the Berkshire mountains to be doing. And now they had come back to their spacious playroom, which was as big as the great drawing-room, and was lumbered with all sorts of playthings, large and small. The biggest was a rocking-borse that looked like a real pony; and there was a whole family of wooden, waxen, plaster, and china dolls, besides rag-babies; and _ blocks enough to build Bunker Hill Monument, and ninepins, and balls, and humming-tops, and battledoors, and grace-sticks, and skipping-ropes, and more of such valuable property than I could tell of in a printed page. But the children liked the snowstorm better than them all. It suggested so many brisk enjoyments for to- morrow and all the remainder of the winter —the sleigh-ride, the slides down hill into the valley, the snow images that were to be shaped out, the snow fortresses that were to be built, and the snowballing to be carried on! So the little folks blessed the snowstorm,A WONDER BOOK. 103 and were glad to see it come thicker and thicker, and watched hopefully the long drift that was piling itself up in the avenue, and was alread y higher than any of their heads, “ Why, we shall be blocked up till spring !” cried they with the hugest delight. “What a pity that the house js too high to be quite covered up! The little red house down yonder will be buried up to its eaves,” “You silly children, what do you want of more snow 2?” asked Eustace, who, tired of some novel that he was skimming through, had strolled into the playroom. “It has done mis. chief enough already by spoiling the only skat. ing that I could hope for through the winter. We shall see nothing more of the lake til] April, and this was to have been my first day upon it! Don’t you pity me Primrose 2” “Oh, to be sure !” answered Primrose, laugh- ing. “ But for your comfort we will listen to another of your old stories, such as you told us under the porch and down in the hollow by Shadow Brook. Perhaps I shall like them better now, when there is nothing to do, than104 A WONDER 300K. while there were nuts to be gathered and beau- tiful weather to enjoy.” Hereupon, Periwinkle, Clover, Sweet Fern, and as many others of the little fraternity and cousinhood as were still at Tanglewood gathered about Eustace and earnestly besought him for a story. The student yawned, stretched him- self, and then, to the vast admiration of the small people, skipped three times back and forth over the top of a chair, in order, as he explained to them, to set his wits in motion. - “Well, well, children,” said he after these pre- liminaries, “since you insist, and Primrose has set her heart upon it, I will see what can be done for you. And, that you may know what happy days there were before snowstorms came into fashion, I will tell you a story of the oldest of all old times, when the world was as new as Sweet Fern’s brand-new humming-top. There was then but one season in the year, and that was the delightful summer; and but one age for mortals, and that was childhood.” “T never heard of that before,” said Prim- TOSe,A WONDER BOOK. 105 “ Of course you never did,” answered Eustace, “Tt shall be a story of what nobody but myself ever dreamed of—a Paradise of Children, and how, by the naughtiness of Just such a little imp as Primrose here, it all came to nothing.” So Eustace Bright sat down in the chair which he had just been Skipping over, took Cowslip upon his knee, ordered silence through- out the auditory, and began a story about a sad, naughty child whose name was Pandora, and about her playfellow Epimetheus. You may read it, word for word, in the pages that come next,A WONDER BOOK. THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN. Lone, long ago, when this old world was in its tender infancy, there was a child named Epimetheus, who never had either father or mother; and, that he might not be lonely, another child, fatherless and motherless lke himself, was sent froma far country to live with him and be his playfellow and helpmate. Her name was Pandora. The first thing that Pandora saw when she entered the cottage where Epimetheus dwelt was a great box, and almost the first question which she put to him after crossing the thresh- old was this: “Epimetheus, what have you in that box?” “My dear little Pandora,” answered Epime- theus, “that is a secret, and you must be kind : enough not to ask any questions about 1t. ‘The box was left here to be kept safely, and I do not myself know what it contains.”A WONDER BOOK. 10? “But who gave it to you?” asked Pandora, “and where did it come from 2” “That is a secret too,” replied Epimetheus. “How provoking!” exclaimed Pandora, pout- ing her lip. “If wish the great ugly box were out of the way !” “Oh, come, don’t think of it any more,” cried Epimetheus. “Let us run out of doors and have some nice play with the other children.” It is thousands of years since Epimetheus and Pandora were alive, and the world nowadays is a very different sort of thing from what it was in their time. Then everybody was a child. There needed no fathers and mothers to take care of the children, because there was no danger nor trouble of any kind, and no clothes to be mended, and there was always plenty to eat and drink. Whenever a child wanted his dinner, he found it growing on a tree; and if he looked at the tree in the morning, he could see the expanding blossom of that night’s supper, or at eventide he saw the tender bud of to-morrow’s breakfast. It was a very pleasant life indeed. No labor to SENN——— A WONDER BOOK. be done, no tasks to be studied—nothing but sports and dances, and sweet voices of children talking or carolling like birds or gushing out in merry laughter throughout the livelong day. What was most wonderful of all, the chil- dren never quarreled among themselves, neither had they any crying fits, nor, since time first be- gan had a single one of these little mortals ever gone apart into a corner and sulked. Oh, what a good time was that to be alive in! The truth is, those ugly little winged monsters called Troubles, which are now almost as numer- ous as mosquitoes, had never yet been seen on the earth. It is probable that the very sreatest disquietude which a child had ever experienced was Pandora’s vexation at not being able to discover the secret of the mysterious box. This was at first only the faint shadow of a Trouble, but every day it grew more and more substantial, until, before a great while, the cottage of Epimetheus and Pandora was less sunshiney than those of the other children. “ Whence can the box have come” Pandora continually kept saying to herself and _ toA WONDER BOOK. 109 Epimetheus, “and what in the world can be inside of it 2” Always talking about this box!” sald Epi- metheus at last, for he had grown extremely tired of the subject. “I wish, dear Pandora, you weuld try to talk of something else. Come, let us go and gather some ripe figs and eat them under the trees for our supper. And I know a vine that has the sweetest and Juiciest grapes you ever tasted.” “Always talking about grapes and figs!” cried Pandora pettishly. “Well, then,” said Epimetheus, who was a very good-tempered child, like a multitude of children in those days, “let us run out and have a merry time with our playmates.” “T am tired of merry times, and don’t care if I never have any more!” answered our pettish little Pandora. “ And, beside, I never do have any. This ugly box! Iam so taken up with thinking about it all the time! I insist upon your telling me what is inside of it.” “As I have already said fifty times over, Ido not know,” replied Epimetheus, getting a little110 A WONDER BOOK. vexed. “How, then, can I tell you what is inside 2” “You might open it,” said Pandora, looking sideways at Epimetheus, “and then we could see for ourselves.” “Pandora, what are you thinking of?” ex- claimed Epimetheus. And his face expressed so much horror at the idea of looking into a box which had been con- fided to him on the condition of his never opening it that Pandora thought it best not to suggest it any more. Still, however, she could not help thinking and talking about the box. “ At least,” she said, “ you can tell me how it came here.” “Tt was left at the door,” rephed Epimetheus, “just before you came, by a person who looked very smiling and intelligent, and who could hardly forbear laughing as he put it down. He was dressed in an odd kind of a cloak, and had on acap that seemed to be made partly of feath- ers, so that it looked almost asifit had wings.” “What sort of a staff had he?” asked Pan- dora.A WONDER BOOK, Lg “Oh, the most curious staff you ever saw !” cried Epimetheus. “It was like two serpents twisting around a stick, and was carved SO naturally that I at first thought the serpents were alive.” “I know him,” said Pandora thoughtfully. “Nobody else has such a staff. It was Quick- silver, and he brought me hither as well as the box. No doubt he intended it for me, and most probably it contains pretty dresses for me to wear, or toys for you and me to play with, or something very nice for us both to eat.” ‘Perhaps so,” answered Epimetheus, turning away. “But until Quicksilver comes back and tells us so we have neither of us any right to lift the lid of the box.” “What a dull boy he is!” muttered Pandora as Hpimetheus left the cottage. “I do wish he had a little more enterprise !” For the first time since her arrival Epimetheus had gone out without asking Pandora to accom- pany him. He went to gather figs and grapes by himself, or to seek whatever amusement he could find in other society than his little play-112 A WONDER BOOK. fellow’s. He was tired to death of hearing about the box, and heartily wished that Quick- silver, or whatever was the messenger’s name, had left it at some other child’s door, where Pandora would never have set eyes on it. So perseveringly as she did babble about this one thing! The box, the box, and nothing but the box! It seemed as if the box were bewitched, and as if the cottage were not big enough to hold it without Pandora’s continually stumbling over it and making Epimetheus stumble over it likewise, and bruising all four of their shins. Well, it was really hard that poor Epimetheus should have a box in his ears from morning till night, especially as the little people of the earth were so unaccustomed to vexations in those happy days that they knew not how to deal with them. Thus a small vexation made as much disturbance then as a far bigger one would in our own times. After Epimetheus was gone Pandora stood gazing at the box. She had called it ugly above a hundred times, but, in spite of all that she had said against it, it was positively a veryA WONDER BOoK. 113 handsome article of furniture, and would have been quite an ornament to any room in which it should be placed. It was made of a beautiful kind of wood with dark and rich veins spread- ing over its surface, which was so highly polished that little Pandora could see her face mit. As the child had no other looking-glags, it is odd that she did not value the box merely on this account. The edges and corners of the box were carved with most wonderful skill. Around the margin there were figures of graceful men and women and the prettiest children ever seen, reclining or sporting amid a profusion of flowers and foliage ; and these various objects were so exquisitely represented and were wrought together in such harmony that flowers, foliage, and human beings seemed to combine into a wreath of mingled beauty. But here and_ there, peeping forth from behind the carved foliage, Pandora once or twice fancied that she saw a face not so lovely, or something or other that was disagreeable, and which stole the beauty out of all the rest.114 A WONDER BOOK. Nevertheless, on looking more closely and touch- ing the spot with her finger, she could discover nothing of the kind. Some face that was really beautiful had been made to look ugly by her catching a sideway glimpse at 1t. The most beautiful face of all was done in what is called high relief in the center of the lid. ‘There was nothing else save the dark, smooth richness of the polished wood, and this one face in the center with a garland of flowers about its brow. Pandora had looked at this face a great many times and imagined that the mouth could smile if it hked or be grave when it chose, the same as any living mouth. The features, indeed, all wore a very lively and rather mischievous expression, which looked almost as if it needs must burst out of the carved lips and utter itself in words. Had the mouth spoken, it would probably have been something like this: “Do not be afraid, Pandora! What harm can there be in opening the box? Never mind that poor, simple Epimetheus. You are wiser than he and have ten times as much spirit.A WONDER BOOK, 115 Open the box and see if you do not find some. thing very pretty.” dhe box, I had almost forgotten to Say, was fastened, not by a lock nor by any other such contrivance, but by a very intricate knot of gold cord. There appeared to be no end to this knot, and no beginning. Never was a knot so cunningly twisted nor with so many ins and outs, which roguishly defied the skillfulest fingers to disentangle them. - And yet, by the very difficulty that there was in it, Pandora was the more tempted to examine the knot and just see how it was made. Two or three times already she had stooped over the box and taken the knot between her thumb and forefinger, but without positively trying to undo it. jE really believe,” said she to herself, “that I begin to see how it was done. Nay, perhaps I could tie it up again after undoing it. There would be no harm in that, surely. Even Epi- metheus would not blame me for that, T need hot open the box, and should not, of course, without the foolish boy’s consent, even if the knot were untied.”A WONDER BOOK. It might have been better for Pandora if she had had a little work to do, or anything to employ her mind upon, 80 as not to be so con- stantly thinking of this one subject. But chil- dren led so easy a life before any Troubles came into the world that they had really a great deal too much leisure. They could not be forever playing at hide-and-seek among the flower shrubs, or at blind-man’s butt with garlands over their eyes, or at: whatever other games had been found out while Mother Earth was in her babyhood. When life is all sport, toil is the real play. There was absolutely nothing to do. A little sweeping and dusting about the cot- tage, I suppose, and the gathering of fresh flowers (which were only too abundant every- and poor where) and arranging them in vases little Pandora’s day’s work was over. And then, for the rest of the day, there was the box ! After all, lam not quite sure that the box was not a blessing to her in its way. It sup- plied her with such a variety of ideas to think of and to talk about whenever she had anybodySSS A WONDER BOOK. 17 to listen! When she was in good humor she could admire the bright polish of its sides and the rich border of beautify] faces and fohage that ran all around it. Or, if she chanced to be ill-tempered, she could give ita push or kick it with her naughty little foot. And many a kick did the box (but it was a mischievous box, as we shall see, and deserved all it got)—many a a kick did it receive. Butcertain it is, if it had not been for the box our active-minded little Pandora would not have known half so well how to spend her time as she now did. For it was really an endless employment. to guess what was inside. What could it be, indeed? Just imagine, my little hearers, how busy your wits would be if there were a great box in the house which, as you might have reason to suppose, contained something new and pretty for your Christmas or New Year’s gifts. Do you think that you should be less curious than Pandora? If you were left alone with the box, might you not feel a little tempted to lift the lid? But you would not do it. Oh, fie! No, no! Only, if you thought there were toys118 A WONDER BOOK. in it, it would be so very hard to let slp an opportunity of taking just one peep! I know not whether Pandora expected any toys, for none had yet begun to be made, probably, in those days, when the world itself was one great plaything for the children that dwelt upon it. But Pandora was convinced that there was something very beautiful and valuable in the box, and therefore she felt just as anxious to take a peep as any of these little girls here around me would have felt, and possibly a little more so; but of that I am not quite so certain. On this particular day, however, which we have so long been talking about, her curiosity erew so much greater than it usually was that at last she approached the box. She was more than half-determined to open it if she could. Ah, naughty Pandora! First, however, she tried to hft it. It was quite too heavy for the slender strength heavy of a child like Pandora. She raised one end of the box a few inches from the floor, and let it fall again with a pretty loud thump. A moment afterward she almost fancied that sheA WONDER BOOK. 119 heard something stir inside of the box. She apphed her ear as closely as possible and listened. Positively, there did seem to be a kind of stifled murmur within! Or was it merely the singing in Pandora's ears? Or could it be the beating of her heart? The child could not quite satisfy herself whether she had heard anything or no. But, at all events, her curiosity was stronger than ever. As she drew back her head her eyes fell upon the knot of gold cord. “Tt must have been a very Ingenious person who tied this knot,” said Pandora to herself. “But I think I could untie it, nevertheless. I am resolved, at least, to find the two ends of the cord.” So she took the golden knot in her fingers and pried into its intricacies as sharply as she could. Almost without intending it or quite knowing what she was about, she was soon busily engaged in attempting to undo it. Meanwhile the bright sunshine came through the open window, as did likewise the merry voices of the children playing at a distance, and SN120 A WONDER BOOK. perhaps the voice of Epimetheus among them. Pandora stopped to listen. What a beautiful day it was! Would it not be wiser if she were to let the troublesome knot alone and think no more about the box, but run and join her little playfellows and be happy ? All this time, however, her fingers were halt- unconsciously busy with the knot; and, hap- pening to glance at the flower-wreathed face on the lid of the enchanted box, she seemed to perceive it slyly grinning at her. “That face looks very mischievous,” thought Pandora. “I wonder whether it smiles because I am doing wrong? I have the greatest mind in the world to run away.” But just then, by the merest accident, she gave the knot a kind of a twist which pro- duced a wonderful result. The gold cord untwined itself as if by magic, and left the box without a fastening. “This is the strangest thing I ever knew said Pandora. “ What will Epimetheus say ? And how can I possibly tie it up again 2?” 1») She made one or two attempts to restore theA WONDER BOOK. Toe knot, but soon found it quite beyond her skill. It had disentangled itself so suddenly that she could not in the least remember how the strings had been doubled into one another, and when she tried to recollect the shape and appearance of the knot it seemed to have gone entirely out of her mind. Nothing was to be done, there- fore, but to let the box remain as it was until Epimetheus should come in. “But,” said Pandora, “ when he finds the knot untied he will know that I have done it. How shall I make him believe that I have not looked into the box ?” And then the thought came into her naughty little heart that, since she would be suspected of having looked into the box, she might just as well do so at once. Oh, very naughty and very foolish Pandora! You should have thought only of doing what was right and of leaving undone what was wrong, and not of what your playfellow Epimetheus would have said or believed. And so, perhaps, she might if the enchanted face on the lid of the box had not looked so bewitchingly persuasive at her, and if122 A WONDER BOOK. she had not seemed to hear, more distinctly than before, the murmur of small voices within. She could not tell whether it was fancy or no, but there was quite a little tumult of whispers in her ear, or else it was her curiosity that whispered : “Let us out, dear Pandora pray let us out! We will be such nice, pretty playfellows for you! Only let us out!” “What can it be?’ thought Pandora. “Is there something alive in the box? Well, yes! —I am resolved to take just one peep! Only one peep, and then the lid shall be shut down as safely as ever. There cannot possibly be any harm in just one little peep.” | But it is now time for us to see what Epime- theus was doing. This was the first time since his little play- mate had come to dwell with him that he had attempted to enjoy any pleasure in which she did not partake. But nothing went right, nor was he nearly so happy as on other days. He could not find a sweet grape or a ripe fig at Epimetheus had a fault, it-was a little too muchA WONDER BOOK. 123 fondness for figs), or, if ripe at all, they were over-ripe and so sweet as to be cloying. There was no mirth in his heart, such as usually made his voice gush out of its own accord and swell the merriment of his companions. In short, he grew so uneasy and discontented that the other children could not imagine what was the matter with Epimetheus. Neither did he himself know what ailed him any better than they did. For you must recollect that at the time we are speaking of it was everybody’s nature and con. stant habit to be happy. The world had not yet learned to be otherwise. Nota single soul or body, since these children were first sent to enjoy themselves on the beautiful earth, had ever been sick or out of sorts. At length, discovering that somehow or other he put a stop to all the play, Epimetheus judged it best to go back to Pandora, who was in a humor better suited to his own. But, with a hope of giving her pleasure, he gathered some flowers and made them into a wreath which he meant to put upon her head. The flowers were very lovely—roses and lilies and orange-blos-124 A WONDER BOOK. soms and a great many more, which left a trail of fragrance behind as Epimetheus carried them along; and the wreath was put together with as much skill as could reasonably be expected of a boy. The fingers of little girls, it has always appeared to me, are the fittest to twine flower- wreaths; but boys could do it in those days rather better than they can now. And here I must mention that a great black cloud had been gathering in the sky for some time past, although it had not yet overspread the sun. But just as Epimetheus reached the cottage door this cloud began to intercept the sunshine and thus to make a sudden and sad obscurity. He entered softly, for he meant, if possible, to steal behind Pandora and fling the wreath of flowers over her head before she should be aware of his approach. But, as it happened, there was no need of his treading so very lightly. He might have trod as heavily as he pleased— as heavily as a grown man—as heavily, I was going to say, as an elephant—without much probability of Pandora’s hearing his footsteps.A WONDER BOOK, 125 She was too intent upon her purpose. At the moment of his entering the cottage the naughty child had put her hand to the lid and was on the point of opening the mysterious box. Epi- metheus beheld her. If he had cried out, Pandora would probably have withdrawn her hand, and the fatal mystery of the box might never have been known. But Epimetheus himself, although he said very little about it, had his own share of curi- osity to know what was inside. Perceiving that Pandora was resolved to find out the secret, he determined that his playfellow should not be the only wise person in the cottage. And if there were anything pretty or valuable in the box he meant to take half of it to himself. Thus, after all his sage speeches to Pandora about restraining her curlosity, Epimetheus turned out to be quite as foolish and nearly as much in fault as she. So, whenever we blame Pandora for what happened, we must not forget to shake our heads at Epimetheus likewise. As Pandora raised the lid the cottage grew very dark and dismal, for the black cloud hadimperfect light she saw a crowd of ugly little 126 A WONDER BOOK. now swept quite over the sun and seemed to have buried it alive. ‘There had, for a little while past, been a low growling and muttering, which all at once broke into a heavy peal of thunder. But Pandora, heeding nothing of all this, lifted the hd nearly upright and looked inside. It seemed as if a sudden swarm of winged creatures brushed past her, taking flight out of the box, while at the same instant she heard the voice of Epimetheus with a Jament- able tone, as if he were in pain. “Qh, Lam stung!” cried he. “TI am stung! Naughty Pandora! why have you opened this wicked box ?” Pandora let fall the lid, and starting up, looked about her to see what had befallen Epi- metheus. The thunder-cloud had so darkened the room that she could not very clearly discern what was in it. But she heard a disagreeable buzzing, asif a great many huge flies or gigantic mosquitoes, or those insects which we call dor- bugs and pinching-dogs, were darting about. And as her eyes grew more accustomed to theA WONDER BOOK. 127 Shapes with bats’ Wings, looking abominably spiteful, and armed with terribly long sting’s in their tails. It was one of these that had stung Epimetheus. Nor was it a great while before Pandora herself began to scream in no less pain and affright than her playfellow, and making a vast deal more hubbub about it. An odious little monster had settled on her forehead, and would have stung her I know not how deeply if Epimetheus had not run and brushed it away. Now, if you wish to know what these ugly things might be which had made their escape out of the box, I must tell you that they were the whole family of earthly Troubles. There were Evil Passions; there were a great many species of Cares; there were more than a hun- dred and fifty Sorrows; there were Diseases in a vast number of miserable and painful shapes ; there were more kinds of Naughtiness than it would be of any use to talk about. In short, everything that has since afflicted the souls and bodies of mankind had been shut up in the mysterious box and given to Epimetheus and128 A WONDER BOOK. Pandora to be kept safely in order that the happy children of the world might never be molested by them. Had they been faithful to their trust, all would have gone well. No grown person would ever have been sad, nor any child have had cause to shed a single tear from that hour until this moment. But act of any one mortal is a calamity to the whole and you may see by this how a wrong world—by Pandora’s lifting the lid of that miserable box, and by the fault of Epimetheus, too, in not preventing her, these Troubles have obtained a foothold among us, and do not seem very likely to be driven away ina hurry. For it was impossible, as you will easily guess, that the two children should keep the ugly swarm in their own little cottage. On the contrary, the first thing that they did was to flmg open the doors and windows in hopes of getting nid of them; and, sure enough, away flew the winged Troubles all abroad, and so pestered and tormented the small people everywhere about that none of them so much as smiled for many days afterward. And, what was veryA WONDER BOOK. 129 singular, all the flowers and dewy blossoms on earth, not one of which had hitherto faded, now began to droop and shed their leaves after a day ortwo. The children, moreover, who before seemed immortal in their childhood, now orew older day by day, and came soon to be youths and maidens, and men and women by and by, and aged people before they dreamed of such a thing. Meanwhile the naughty Pandora and hardly less naughty Epimetheus remained in their cot- tage. Both of them had been grievously stung, and were in a good deal of pain, which seemed the more intolerable to them because it was the very first pain that had ever been felt since the world began. Of course they were entirely unaccustomed to it, and could have no idea what it meant. Besides all this, they were in exceedingly bad humor both with themselves and with one another. In order to indulge it to the utmost, Epimetheus sat down sullenly in a corner with his back toward Pandora, while Pandora flung herself upon the floor and rested her head on the fatal and abominable box.130 A WONDER BOOK. She was crying bitterly and sobbing as if her heart would break. Suddenly there was a gentle little tap on the inside of the lid. “What can that be?’ cried Pandora, lifting her head. But either Epimetheus had not heard the tap or was too much out of humor to notice it. At any rate, he made no answer. “You are very unkind,” said Pandora, sob- bing anew, “not to speak to me.” Again the tap! It sounded like the tiny knuckles of a fairy’s hand knocking lightly and playfully on the inside of the box. “Who are you?” asked Pandora, with alittle of her former curiosity. “Who are you, inside of this naughty box ?” A sweet little voice spoke from within : “Only lift the lid and you shall see.” “No, no!” answered Pandora, again beginning to sob; “I have had enough of lifting the lid! You are inside of the box, naughty creature, aud there you shall stay! There are plenty of ‘ugly brothers and sisters already flyi your ugly brothers and sisters already flyingxX WONDER BOOK: ae about the world. You need never think that I shall be so foolish as to let you out.” She looked toward Epimetheus as she spoke, perhaps expecting that he would commend her for her wisdom. But the sullen boy only mut. tered that she was wise a little too late. “Ah,” said the sweet little voice again, “you had much better let me out. Iam not hke those naughty creatures that have stings in their tails. T hey are no brothers and sisters of mine, as you would see at once if you were only to get a glimpse of me. Come, come, my pretty Pandora! Iam sure you will let me out!” And, indeed, there was a kind of cheerful witchery in the tone that made it almost impos: sible to refuse anything which this little voice asked. Pandora’s heart had insensibly grown lighter at every word that came from within the box. Epimetheus, too, though still in a corner, had turned half round, and seemed to be in rather better spirits than before. “My dear Epimetheus,” cried Pandora, “have you heard this little voice 2” “Yes, to be sure I have,” answered he, butA WONDER BOOK. in no very good humor as yet. “ And what of it?” “ Shall I lift the lid again?” asked Pandora. “ Just as you please,” said Epimetheus. “ You have done so much mischief already that per- haps you may as well doa little more. One other Trouble in such a swarm as you have set adrift about the world can make no very great difference.” “You might speak a little more kindly,” murmured Pandora, wiping her eyes. «Ah, naughty boy!” cried the little voice within the box in an arch and laughing tone. “ He knows he is longing to see me. Come, my dear Pandora, lift up the lid. J am in a great hurry to comfort you. Only let me have some fresh air, and you shall soon see that matters are not quite so dismal as you think them.” « Epimetheus,” exclaimed Pandora, “come what may, I am resolved to open the box.” ) « And, as the lid seems very heavy,” cried Epimetheus, running across the room, “I will help you.” So, with one consent, the two children againA WONDER BOOK. 138 lifted the lid. Ont flew a sunny and smiling little personage, and hovered about the room, throwing a light Wherever she went. H ave you never made the sunshine d ance into dark corners by reflecting it from a bit of looking-glags ? Well, so looked the winged cheerfulness of this fairy-like stranger amid the gloom of the cot: tage. She flew to Epimetheus and laid the least touch of her finger on the inflamed Spot where the Trouble had stung him, and immedi. ately the anguish of it was gone. Then she kissed Pandora on the forehead, and her hurt was cured likewise. After performing these good offices the bright stranger fluttered sportivel y over the children’s heads, and looked so sweetly at them that they both began to think it not so very much amiss to have opened the box, since otherwise their cheery guest must have been kept a prisoner among those naughty imps with stings in their tails. “Pray who are you, beautiful creature ?” in- quired Pandora.A WONDER BOOK. “Tam to be called Hope,” answered the sun- shiny figure. “ And because I am such a cheery little body I was packed into the box to make amends to the human race for that swarm of ugly Troubles which was destined to be let loose among them. Never fear! we shall do pretty well in spite of them alle “Your wings are colored like the rainbow !" exclaimed Pandora. “How very beautiful!” “Yes, they are like the rainbow,” said Hope, “because, glad as my nature is, I am partly made of tears as well as smiles.” “And will you stay with us,” asked Epi- metheus, “forever and ever 2” «As long as you need me,” said Hope, with her pleasant smile, “and that will be as long as you live in the world. I promise never to desert you. There may come times and seasons, now and then, when you will think that I have utterly vanished. But again and again and again, when perhaps you least dream of it, you shall see the glimmer of my wings on the ceil- ing of your cottage. Yes, my dear children, andA WONDER BOOK, 135 I know something very good and beautiful that is to be given to you hereafter,” “Oh, tell us !” they exclaimed ; « tell ys what it is !” “Do not ask me,” replied finger on her rosy mouth. even if it should never h Hope, putting her “ But do not despair, appen while you live on | this earth. Trustin my promise, for it ig “We do trust you !” ¢ true.” ried Epimetheus and Pandora, both in one breath. And so they did; and not only they, but so has everybody trusted Tope that has since been alive. And, to tel] you the truth, I ¢ being glad (though, to be Sure, 1t was an un- commonly naughty thing for her to do)—but I cannot help being glad that our foolish Pandora peeped into the box. No doubt—no doubt— the Troubles are stil] flying about the world, and have increased in multitude rather than lessened, and are a very ugly annot help set of imps, and calry most venomous stings in their tails. J have felt them already, and expect to feel them more as I grow older. But then that lovely136 A WONDER BOOK. and lightsome little figure of Hope! What in the world could we do without her? Hope spiritualizes the earth; Hope makes it always new; and even in the earth’s best and brightest aspect Hope shows it to be only the shadow of an infinite bliss hereafter !A WONDER BOOK. TANGLEWOOD PLAY-ROOM AFTER THE STORY. “ PRIMROSE,” asked Eustace, pinching her ear, “how do you like my little Pandora? Don’t you think her the exact picture of yourself ? But you would not have hesitated half so long about opening the box.” “Then I should have been well punished for my naughtiness,” retorted Primrose smartly, “for the first thing to pop out after the lid was lifted would have been Mr. Eustace Bright in the shape of a Trouble.” “Cousin Eustace,” said Sweet Fern, “did the box hold all the trouble that has ever come into the world 2” “Every mite of it!” answered Eustace. “This very snowstorm which has spoiled my skating was packed up there.”A WONDER BOOK. “And how big was the box?” asked Sweet Fern. “Why, perhaps three feet long,” said Eus- tace, “two feet wide, and two feet and a halt high.” « Ah,” said the child, “you are making fun of me, Cousin Eustace! I know there is not trouble enough in the world to fill such a great box as that. As for the snowstorm, it is no trouble at all, but a pleasure, so 1t could not have been in the box.” “Hear the child!” cried Primrose with an air of superiority. “How little he knows about the troubles of this world! Poor fellow! He will be wiser when he has seen as much of life as I have.” So saying, she began to skip the rope. Meantime the day was drawing toward its close. Out of doors the scene certainly looked dreary. There was a gray drift far and wide through the gathering twilight, the earth was as pathless as the air, and the bank of snow over the steps of the porch proved that nobody had entered or gone out for a good many hoursA WONDER BOOK. 139 past. Had there been only one child at the window of Tanglewood gazing at this wintry prospect, it would perhaps have made him sad. But half a dozen children together, though they cannot quite turn the world into a paradise, may defy old Winter and all his storms to put them out of spirits. Eustace Bright, moreover, on the spur of the moment invented several new kinds of play, which kept them all in a roar of merriment till bedtime, and served for the next stormy day besides.A WONDER BOOK. TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE. INTRODUCTORY TO “THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES.” Tre snowstorm lasted another day, but what became of it afterward I cannot possibly im- agine. At any rate, it entirely cleared away during the night, and when the sun arose the next morning it shone brightly down on as bleak a tract of hill country here in Berkshire as could be seen anywhere in the world. The frost-work had so covered the window-panes that it was hardly possible to get a glimpse at the scenery outside. But while waiting for breakfast the small populace of Tanglewood had scratched ' peepholes with their fingernails, and saw with vast delight that—unless it were one or two bare patches on a precipitous hillside or the gray effect of the snow intermingled with the black pine forest—all nature was as white as aA WONDER BOOK. 141 sheet. How exceedingly pleasant! And, to make it all the better, it was cold enough to nip one’s nose short off! If people have but life enough in them to bear it, there is nothing that so raises the spirits and makes the blood ripple and dance so nimbly, like a brook down the slope of a hill, as a bright, hard frost. No sooner was breakfast over than the whole party, well muffled in furs and woolens, floun- dered forth into the midst of the snow. Well, what a day of frosty sport was this! They slid downhill into the valley a hundred times, nobody knows how far; and, to make it all the meirier, upsetting their sledges and tumbling head over heels quite as often as they came safely to the bottom. And once Eustace Bright took Periwinkle, Sweet Fern, and Squash- blossom on the sledge with him, by way of insuring a safe passage, and down they went, full speed. But, behold! halfway down the sledge hit against a hidden stump and flung all four of its passengers into a heap, and on gather- ing themselves up there was no little Squash- blossom to be found ! Why, what could haveA WONDER BOOK. become of the child? And while they were wondering and staring about, up started Squash- blossom out of a snowbank with the reddest face you ever saw, and looking as if a large scarlet flower had suddenly sprouted up in mid- winter. ‘Then there was a great laugh. When they had grown tired of sliding down- hill, Eustace set the children to digging a cave in the biggest snowdrift that they could find. Unluckily, just as it was completed and the party had squeezed themselves into the hollow, down came the roof upon their heads and buried every soul of themalive! The next moment up popped all their little heads out of the ruins, and the tall student’s head in the midst of them, looking hoary and venerable with the snowdust that had got among his brown curls. And then, to punish Cousin Eustace for advising them to dig such a tumbledown cavern, the children attacked him in a body, and so bepelted him with snowballs that he was fain to take to his heels. So he ran away and went into the woods, and thence to the margin of Shadow Brook, whereA WONDER BOOK, 143 he could hear the streamlet grumbling along under oreat overhanging banks of show and j 1¢e, which would scarcely let it see the light of day, There were adamantine icicles glittering around. all its little cascades. Thence he strolled to the shore of the lake and beheld a white untrodden plain before him stretching from his own feet to the foot of Monument Mouniie And, it being how almost Sunset, Eustace thought that he had never beheld anything so fresh and beautiful as the scene. He was glad that the children were not with him, for their lively spirits and tumble- about activity would quite have chased away his higher and graver mood, so that he would merely have been merry (as he had already been the whole « day long), and would not have known the loveliness of the winter sunset among the hills. When the sun was fairly down our friend Eustace went home to eat his supper. After the meal was over he betook himself to the study, with a purpose, I rather j Imagine, to write an ode or two or three sonnets or verses of some kind or other in praise of the purple and goldenA WONDER BOOK. clouds which he had seen around the setting sun. But before he had hammered out the very first rhyme the door opened and Primrose and Periwinkle made their appearance. “Go away, children! I can’t be troubled with you now!” cried the student, looking over his shoulder with the pen between his fingers. “What in the world do you want here? I thought you were all in bed.” “Fear him, Periwinkle, trying to talk like a erown man!” said Primrose. “And he seems to forget that I am now thirteen years old, and may sit up almost as late as I please. But, Cousin Eustace, you must put off your airs and come with us to the drawing-room. The chil- dren have talked so much about your stories that my father wishes to hear one of them, in order to judge whether they are likely to do any mischief.” “Pooh! pooh! Primrose!” exclaimed the student, rather vexed. “I don’t believe I can tell one of my stories in the presence of grown people. Besides, your father is a classical scholar; not that I am much afraid of hisA WONDER BOOK. 145 scholarship, neither, for I doubt not it is as rusty as an old caseknife by this time. But then he will be sure to quarrel with the admira- ble nonsense that I put into these stories out of my own head, and which makes the vreat charm of the matter for children like yourself. No man of fifty who has read the classical] myths in his youth can possibly understand my merit as a re-Inventor and improver of them.” “All this may be very true,” said Primrose, “but come you must. My father will not open his book nor will mamma open the piano till you have given us some of your nonsense, as you very correctly call it. So be a good boy and come along.” Whatever he might pretend, the student was rather glad than otherwise, on second thoughts, to catch at the opportunity of proving to Mr. Pringle what an excellent faculty he had in modernizing the myths of ancient times. Until twenty years of age a young man may, indeed, be rather bashful about showing his poetry and his prose, but, for all that, he is pretty apt to think that these very productions would placeNS 146 A WONDER BOOK. him at the tip-top of literature if once they could be known. Accordingly, without much more resistance, Eustace suffered Primrose and Periwinkle to drag him into the drawing-room. It was a large, handsome apartment with a semicircular window at one end, in the recess of which stood a marble copy of Greenough’s Angel and Child. On one side of the fireplace there were many shelves of books gravely but richly bound. The white hght of the astral lamp and the red glow of the bright coal-fire made the room brilliant and cheerful, and before the fire, in a deep armchair, sat Mr. Pringle, look- ing just fit to be seated in such a chair and in such a room. He was a tall and quite a hand- some gentleman with a bald brow, and was always so nicely dressed that even Hustace Bright never liked to enter his presence without at least pausing at the threshold to settle his shirt collar. But now, as Primrose had hold of one of his hands and Periwinkle of the other, he was forced to make his appearance with a rough-and-tumble sort of look, as if he had been rolling all day in a snowbank. And so he had.A WONDER BOOK. 147 Mr. Pringle turned tow ard the student be. nignly enough, but in a way that made him fee] how uncombed and unbrushed he w uncombed and unbrushed, 1i] mind and thoughts, “ Kustace,” said Mr. Pringle with find that you are producing as, and how