Periwinkle is very much grown , and is expected to shut up her baby house and throw away her doll in a month or two more . Sweet Fern has learned to read and write , and has put on a jacket and pair of pantaloons -- all of which improvements I am sorry for . Squash Blossom , Blue Eye , Plantain , and Buttercup have had the scarlet fever , but came easily through it . Huckleberry , Milkweed , and Dandelion were attacked with the whooping cough , but bore it bravely , and kept out of doors whenever the sun shone . Cowslip , during the autumn , had either the measles , or some eruption that looked very much like it , but was hardly sick a day . Poor Clover has been a good deal troubled with her second teeth , which have made her meagre in aspect and rather fractious in temper ; nor , even when she smiles , is the matter much mended , since it discloses a gap just within her lips , almost as wide as the barn door . But all this will pass over , and it is predicted that she will turn out a very pretty girl . As for Mr. Bright himself , he is now in his senior year at Williams College , and has a prospect of graduating with some degree of honorable distinction at the next Commencement . In his oration for the bachelor 's degree , he gives me to understand , he will treat of the classical myths , viewed in the aspect of baby stories , and has a great mind to discuss the expediency of using up the whole of ancient history , for the same purpose . I do not know what he means to do with himself after leaving college , but trust that , by dabbling so early with the dangerous and seductive business of authorship , he will not be tempted to become an author by profession . If so I shall be very sorry for the little that I have had to do with the matter , in encouraging these first beginnings . I wish there were any likelihood of my soon seeing Primrose , Periwinkle , Dandelion , Sweet Fern , Clover Plantain , Huckleberry , Milkweed , Cowslip , Buttercup , Blue Eye , and Squash Blossom again . But as I do not know when I shall re-visit Tanglewood , and as Eustace Bright probably will not ask me to edit a third `` WonderBook , '' the public of little folks must not expect to hear any more about those dear children from me . Heaven bless them , and everybody else , whether grown people or children ! THE MINOTAUR . In the old city of Troezene , at the foot of a lofty mountain , there lived , a very long time ago , a little boy named Theseus . His grandfather , King Pittheus , was the sovereign of that country , and was reckoned a very wise man ; so that Theseus , being brought up in the royal palace , and being naturally a bright lad , could hardly fail of profiting by the old king 's instructions . His mother 's name was Aethra . As for his father , the boy had never seen him . But , from his earliest remembrance , Aethra used to go with little Theseus into a wood , and sit down upon a moss-grown rock , which was deeply sunken into the earth .
Here she often talked with her son XXXXX his father , and said that he was called Aegeus , and that he was a great king , and ruled over Attica , and dwelt at Athens , which was as famous a city as any in the world .
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