Primrose, laughing. "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, than while
there were nuts to be gathered, and beautiful 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 himself, 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 preliminaries, "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
snow-storms 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 bran-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."

"I never heard of that before," said Primrose.

"Of course, you never did," answered Eustace. "It 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 throughout
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.

[Illustration]

THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN

[Illustration]

Long, 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 like himself, was sent from a 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 threshold, was this,--

"Epimetheus, what have you in