border of beautiful faces and foliage that ran all around it. Or, if
she chanced to be ill-tempered, she could give it a push, or kick it
with her naughty little foot. And many a kick did the box--(but it was
a mischievous box, as we shall see, and deserved all it got)--many a
kick did it receive. But, certain it is, if it had not been for the
box, our active-minded little Pandora 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 reason 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 lift the lid? 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
plaything 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!