nursery tales that were made for the amusement of our great old
grandmother, the Earth, when she was a child in frock and pinafore.
There are a hundred such; and it is a wonder to me that they have not
long ago been put into picture-books for little girls and boys. But,
instead of that, old gray-bearded grandsires pore over them, in musty
volumes of Greek, and puzzle themselves with trying to find out when,
and how, and for what they were made."

"Well, well, well, well, Cousin Eustace!" cried all the children at
once; "talk no more about your stories, but begin."

"Sit down, then, every soul of you," said Eustace Bright, "and be all as
still as so many mice. At the slightest interruption, whether from
great, naughty Primrose, little Dandelion, or any other, I shall bite
the story short off between my teeth, and swallow the untold part. But,
in the first place, do any of you know what a Gorgon is?"

"I do," said Primrose.

"Then hold your tongue!" rejoined Eustace, who had rather she would have
known nothing about the matter. "Hold all your tongues, and I shall
tell you a sweet pretty story of a Gorgon's head."

And so he did, as you may begin to read on the next page. Working up
his sophomorical erudition with a good deal of tact, and incurring great
obligations to Professor Anthon, he, nevertheless, disregarded all
classical authorities, whenever the vagrant audacity of his imagination
impelled him to do so.