THE PARADISE OF CIIILDREN. 97

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 rea-
son 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 litt the id? But you would not do it. O, fie! No,
no! Only, if you thought there were toys in it, it would
be so very hard to let slip 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 play-
thing 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 grew 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 lift it. It was heavy ;
quite too heavy for the slender strength of a child, like
Pandora. She raised one end of the box a few inches

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