THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN
‘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 Epimetheus 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 accompany him. He went to gather figs and grapes by himself, or to seek whatever amusement he could find, in other society than his little playfellow’s. He was tired to death of hearing about the box, and heartily wished that Quicksilver, 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 very handsome article of furniture, and would have been quite an ornament to any room in which it
83
