s,--though I suppose I shall have to ere many
days,--was dreaming over a fragrant Cabanas; Madame was hard at work
over a pile of the week's stockings; and the children taking their last
frolic about the parlor, preparatory to their unwilling Good-night and
fearful departure to the hated regions above stairs;--when our
neat-handed Bridget entered the room, staggering under the weight of the
monthly parcel of French books, just arrived by express.

You, who live where you can see all the new books as soon as they
appear, can hardly imagine the eagerness with which we poor country
people, far away from publishing-houses and foreign bookstores, welcome
the sight of this monthly parcel. We passed over the green and yellow
duodecimos, glancing at Feval, About, Berthel, Sand, and the rest, each
looking for his particular favorite among the authors, when the
children, whose busy fingers had helped to untie the knots and unwrap
the packages, and who were rummaging with as much eagerness as we,
suddenly discovered a sober octavo, that seemed to promise well; for,
after a hasty look at it, they carried it away to the library-table, and
examined it, for a time, in profound silence. After a while, one little
boy spoke out:--

"O, papa! this must be a real old-fashioned fairy-book, for it is full
of pictures of fairies, and knights, and giants, and dwarfs, and
dragons! Do read it to us, please!"

Now, my dear friend, you know that my youngsters have a most insatiate
appetite for, and a most thorough appreciation of, real fairy stories,
as they call them. But they are pitiless judges; they can hardly tire of
Blue Beard, and Beauty and the Beast, and the Arabian Nights; but they
turn up their little noses in contempt at the _moral_ fairy stories,
which some of their kind aunts have attempted to impose upon them. I
myself have a secret dislike for those sham stories which deceive you
into believing you are hearing about real fairies and giants, only to
tell you, at the end, that the good fairy is no other than Cheerfulness,
Industry, or some sister virtue, and that the giant is Luxury,
Ill-Temper, or some kindred vice. Yet the children are severer critics
than I. They will have nothing whatever to do with the good fairies who
have no magical power, and who live in their own little bodies; nor with
the wicked giants who, they can see at once, have none of the attributes
of the giants of old. They swallow the pill once, thinking it a