chair, in order, as he explained to them, to set his wits in motion.

"Well, well, children," said he, after these preliminaries, "since you
insist, and Primrose has set her heart upon it, I will see what can be
done for you. And, that you may know what happy days there were before
snowstorms came into fashion, I will tell you a story of the oldest of
all old times, when the world was as new as Sweet Fern's bran-new
humming-top. There was then but one season in the year, and that was
the delightful summer; and but one age for mortals, and that was
childhood."

"I never heard of that before," said Primrose.

"Of course, you never did," answered Eustace. "It shall be a story of
what nobody but myself ever dreamed of,--a Paradise of children,--and
how, by the naughtiness of just such a little imp as Primrose here, it
all came to nothing."

So Eustace Bright sat down in the chair which he had just been skipping
over, took Cowslip upon his knee, ordered silence throughout the
auditory, and began a story about a sad naughty child, whose name was
Pandora, and about her playfellow Epimetheus. You may read it, word for
word, in the pages that come next.



THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN.

Long, long ago, when this old world was in its tender infancy, there was
a child, named Epimetheus, who never had either father or mother; and,