So, with one consent, the two children again lifted the lid. Out flew a sunny and smiling little personage, and hovered about the room, throwing a light wherever she went. Have you never made the sunshine dance into dark corners, by reflecting it from a bit of looking-glass? Well, so looked the winged cheerfulness of this fairylike stranger, amid the gloom of the cottage. She flew to Epimetheus, and laid the least touch of her finger on the inflamed spot where the Trouble had stung him, and immediately the anguish of it was gone. Then she kissed Pandora on the forehead, and her hurt was cured likewise.
After performing these good offices, the bright stranger fluttered sportively over the children’s heads, and looked so sweetly at them, that they both began to think it not so very much amiss to have opened the box, since, otherwise, their cheery guest must have been kept a prisoner among those naughty imps with stings in their tails.
“Pray, who are you, beautiful creature?” inquired Pandora.
“I am to be called Hope!” answered the sunshiny figure. “And because I am such a cheery little body, I was packed into the box, to make amends to the human race for that swarm of ugly Troubles, which was destined to be let loose among them. Never fear! we shall do pretty well, in spite of them all.”
“Your wings are colored like the rainbow!” exclaimed Pandora. “How very beautiful!”
“Yes, they are like the rainbow,” said Hope, “because glad as my nature is, I am partly made of tears as well as smiles.”
“And will you stay with us,” asked Epimetheus, “for ever and ever?”
“As long as you need me,” said Hope, with her pleasant smile,—“and that will be as long as you live in the world,—I promise never to desert you. There may come times and seasons, now and then, when you will think that I have utterly vanished. But again, and again, and again, when perhaps you least dream of it, you shall see the glimmer of my wings on the ceiling of your cottage. Yes, my dear children, and I know something very good and beautiful that is to be given you hereafter!”
“O tell us,” they exclaimed,—“tell us what it is!”
“Do not ask me,” replied Hope, putting her finger on her rosy mouth. “But do not despair, even if it should never happen while you live on this earth. Trust in my promise, for it is true.”