Page:Wonder Book.djvu/168

 Primrose here, as the little folks choose to call her, and the rest of the children, have been so loud in praise of your stories, that Mrs. Pringle and myself are really curious to hear a specimen. It would be so much the more gratifying to myself, as the stories appear to be an attempt to render the fables of classical antiquity into the idiom of modern fancy and feeling. At least, so I judge from a few of the incidents which have come to me at second hand.’

‘You are not exactly the auditor that I should have chosen, sir,’ observed the student, ‘for fantasies of this nature.’

‘Possibly not,’ replied Mr. Pringle. ‘I suspect, however, that a young author’s most useful critic is precisely the one whom he would be least apt to choose. Pray oblige me, therefore.’

‘Sympathy, methinks, should have some little share in the critic’s qualifications,’ murmured Eustace Bright. ‘However, sir, if you will find patience, I will find stories. But be kind enough to remember that I am addressing myself to the imagination and sympathies of the children, not to your own.’

Accordingly, the student snatched hold of the first theme which presented itself. It was suggested by a plate of apples that he happened to spy on the mantelpiece.