ning and smiling down at them, and making the bogs and the
paths as clear as day, and stealing into the very corners, as though
she'd have driven the darkness and the Bogles clean away if she could.

A Son of Adam

A man was one day working. It was very hot, and he was digging.
By-and-by he stopped to rest and wipe his face; and he was very angry to
think he had to work so hard only because of Adam's sin. So he
complained bitterly, and said some very hard words about Adam.

It happened that his master heard him, and he asked, "Why do you blame
Adam? You'd ha' done just like Adam, if you'd a-been in his place."

"No, I shouldn't," said the man; "I should ha' know'd better."

"Well, I'll try you," says his master; "come to me at dinner-time."

So come dinner-time, the man came, and his master took him into a room
where the table was a-set with good things of all sorts. And he said:
"Now, you can eat as much as ever you like from any of the dishes on the
table; but don't touch the covered dish in the middle till I come back."
And with that the master went out of the room and left the man there all
by himself.

So the man sat down and helped himself, and ate some o' this dish and
some o' that, and enjoyed himself finely. But after awhile, as his
master didn't come back, he began to look at the covered dish, and to
wonder whatever was in it. And he wondered more and more, and he says to
himself, "It must be something very nice. Why shouldn't I just look at
it? I won't touch it. There can't be any harm in just peeping." So at
last he could hold back no longer, and he lifted up the cover a tiny
bit; but he couldn't see anything. Then he lifted it up a bit more, and
out popped a mouse. The man tried to catch it; but it ran away and
jumped off the table and he ran after it. It ran first into one corner,
and then, just as he thought he'd got it, into another, and under the
table, and all about the room. And the man made such a clatter, jumping
and banging and running round after the mouse, a-trying to catch it,
that at last his master came in.

"Ah!" he said; "never you blame Adam again, my man!"

The Children in the Wood

Now ponder well, you parents dear,
These words which I shall write;
A doleful story you shall hear,
In time brought forth to light.
A gentleman of good account,
In Norfolk dwelt of late,
Who did in honour far surmount
Most men of his