the box, and heartily wished that Quicksilver, or whatever was the
messenger's name, had left it at some other child's door, where Pandora
would never have set eyes on it. So perseveringly as she did babble
about this one thing! The box, the box, and nothing but the box! It
seemed as if the box were bewitched, and as if the cottage were not big
enough to hold it, without Pandora's continually stumbling over it, and
making Epimetheus stumble over it likewise, and bruising all four of
their shins.

Well, it was really hard that poor Epimetheus should have a box in his
ears from morning till night; especially as the little people of the
earth were so unaccustomed to vexations, in those happy days, that they
knew not how to deal with them. Thus, a small vexation made as much
disturbance, then, as a far bigger one would, in our own times.

After Epimetheus was gone, Pandora stood gazing at the box. She had
called it ugly, above a hundred times; but, in spite of all that she had
said against it, it was positively a very handsome article of furniture,
and would have been quite an ornament to any room in which it should be
placed. It was made of a beautiful kind of wood, with dark and rich
veins spreading over its surface, which was so highly polished that
little Pandora could see her face in it. As the child had no other
looking-glass, it is odd that she did not value the box, merely on this
account.

The edges and corners of the box were carved with most wonderful skill.
Around the margin there were figures of graceful men and women, and the
prettiest children ever seen, reclining or sporting amid a profusion of
flowers and foliage; and these various objects were so exquisitely
represented, and were wrought together in such harmony, that flowers,