“I know him,” said Pandora, thoughtfully.  “Nobody else has such a staff.  It was Quicksilver; and he brought me hither, as well as the box.  No doubt he intended it for me; and, most probably, it contains pretty dresses for me to wear, or toys for you and me to play with, or something very nice for us both to eat!”

“Perhaps so,” answered Epimetheus, turning away.  “But until Quicksilver comes back and tells us so, we have neither of us any right to lift the lid of the box.”

“What a dull boy he is!” muttered Pandora, as Epimetheus left the cottage.  “I do wish he had a little more enterprise!”

For the first time since her arrival, Epimetheus had gone out without asking Pandora to accompany him.  He went to gather figs and grapes by himself, or to seek whatever amusement he could find, in other society than his little playfellow’s.  He was tired to death of hearing about 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 did she 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, foliage, and human beings seemed to combine into a wreath of mingled beauty.  But here and there, peeping forth from behind the carved foliage, Pandora once or twice fancied that she saw a face not so lovely, or something or other that was disagreeable, and which stole the beauty out of all the rest.  Nevertheless, on looking more closely, and touching the spot with her finger, she could discover nothing of the kind.  Some face that was really beautiful had been made to look ugly by her catching a sideway glimpse at it.