"Do not ask me," replied Hope, putting her finger on her rosy mouth.
"But do not despair, even if it should never happen while you live on
this earth. Trust in my promise, for it is true."

"We do trust you!" cried Epimetheus and Pandora, both in one breath.

And so they did; and not only they, but so has everybody trusted Hope,
that has since been alive. And to tell you the truth, I cannot help
being glad--(though, to be sure, it was an uncommonly 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 still flying
about the world, and have increased in multitude, rather than
lessened, and are a very ugly set of imps, and carry most venomous
stings in their tails. I have felt them already, and expect to feel
them more, as I grow older. But then that lovely 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.

[Illustration]

TANGLEWOOD PLAY-ROOM

[Illustration]

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?"

"Every mite of it!" answered Eustace. "This very snow-storm, which has
spoiled my skating, was packed up there."

"And how big was the box?" asked Sweet Fern.

"Why, perhaps three feet long," said Eustace, "two feet wide, and two
feet and a half 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 snow-storm, it is no trouble at all, but a
pleasure; so it 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 th