`` 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 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 , 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 XXXXX her finger , she could discover nothing of the kind .
For amid at from over since than that to with