out it.

Of course she admired it; she always admired everything they brought
her, if it was only a star-fish or a new kind of sea-weed. She said it
was made of some sort of precious metal, and that it seemed to be a
mirror such as they used in olden times before looking-glasses had been
invented. "Perhaps," she added, "it has been washed up from the sea."
But the children cried, "Oh, no, the Little Gray Grandmother left it."
They were very, very sure of that. But for whom had it been left? Even
the dear-mother could not settle this question.

At last it was decided that it should be hung on the cottage wall that
all might use it; so there it hung for many a year, and ah, such strange
things as the children saw reflected in it! It was not at all like an
ordinary mirror, not in the least like anything you ever saw, and yet,
perchance you may have seen something like it. How do I know?

Well, at any rate the children had never heard of such a wonderful
mirror before. It had a queer way of swinging itself on its hinge--I
forgot to tell you that it had been fastened to the wall by a hinge so
that its face could be turned toward the east or the west window, and
thus let the children see themselves in the morning as well as the
evening light. At first they thought this was a fine idea, but sometimes
it was not exactly comfortable to have the small mirror suddenly swing
round and face them when they didn't care to be faced.

For instance, when Mai had been working hard all day and because she
felt tired, spoke crossly to the little brothers, it was not at all
agreeable to look up and see the face of a bear reflected in the silver
mirror, or when Gregory had been boasting of something fine he was going
to accomplish, to catch a glimpse of a barnyard rooster strutting about
as if he were indeed the master of the farm. Somehow it made Gregory
feel foolish even if the rest of the children did not see the image in
the mirror. Once little Beta came in ahead of the others, and, finding
some apples that the father had brought home, seized the largest one and
began to devour it. A swing of the silver mirror brought its polished
surface before her eyes, and instead of a reflection of her own chubby
face, she saw a pig greedily devouring a pile of apples. She couldn't
understand it, and yet it made her feel ashamed and she quietly laid the
apple back on the table.

But the pictures were not all disagreeable ones. Sometimes the small