that a furious wolf was at my heels. The reason for this foolish
fear--for it was foolish, of course--was, that a servant girl, in the
employ of my mother, used to tell me scores of stories in which wolves
always played a very prominent part. I remember one story in particular,
which cost me a world of terror. The principal scene in the tale, and
the one which most frightened me, was at the time pictured so strongly
on my imagination, that it never entirely wore off. It was much after
this fashion. The wolf's jaws were opened wide enough to take a poor
fellow's head in, and fancy pictured that event as being about to happen
scores of times. Indeed, the nurse told me, over and over again, that
unless I kept out of mischief--which I did not always, I am sorry to
say--I should be sure to come to some such end. Boys and girls, if you
have ever heard such stories, don't let them trouble you for a moment.
There is not a word of truth in them. I know how you feel--some of you
who are quite young, and who have been entertained with stories of this
class--when any body asks you to go alone into a dark room. You are
afraid of something, and for your life cannot tell what. I should not
wonder very much if some of you were _afraid of the dark_. I have heard
children talk about being afraid of the dark. You laugh, perhaps. It is
rather funny--almost too funny to be treated seriously. Well, if it is
not the dark, what is it you are afraid of? Your parents, and others who
are older than you, are alone in the dark a thousand times in the course
of a year. Did you ever hear them say any thing about meeting a single
one of the heroes of the frightful stories you have heard? Do you think
they ever came across a ghost, or an apparition, or a fairy, or an elf,
or a witch, or a hobgoblin, or a giant, or a Blue-Beard, or a wolf? It
makes you smile to think of it. Well, then, after all, don't you think
it would be a great deal wiser and better to turn all these foolish
fancies out of your head, just as one would get rid of a company of
saucy rats and mice that were doing mischief in the cellar or