"But it is a secret. You must come into the corner with Fanny, and Mary, and me." For peace and quiet he went into the corner with them, and they whispered into each ear a question, how many burnt almonds and gingerbread-buttons, and how much barley-sugar, two shillings and threepence halfpenny would buy? The cowslips were now ready to make tea of, and the feast on the dolls' dishes might be served any day. Mr Enderby promised to inquire at the confectioner's, and not to tell anybody else; and at last the children were got rid of. "Now that we have done with mysteries," said he, as he resumed his seat by the window, "that is, with children's mysteries that we can see to the bottom of, let us look a little into the poet's mysteries. What were you reading? Show me, and I will be your reader. Who or what is this Heavenly Beauty? We have not done with mysteries yet, I see." "I was wondering," said Margaret smiling, "whether you take up Spenser because you are tired of mysteries. In such a case, some other poet might suit you better." "What other?" "Some one less allegorical, at least." "I do not know that," said Hester. "The most cunning allegory that ever was devised is plain and easy in comparison with the simplest true story,--fully told: and a man is a poet in proportion as he fully tells a simple true story." "A story of the mind, you mean," said Mr Enderby, "not of the mere events of life?" "Of the mind, of course, I mean. Without the mind the mere life is nothing." "Is not allegory a very pretty way of telling such a story of the mind, under the appearance of telling a story of a life?" "Yes," said Margaret; "and that is the reason why so many like allegory. There is a pleasure in making one's way about a grotto in a garden; but I think there is a much higher one in exploring a cave on the sea-shore, dim and winding, where you never know that you have come to the end,--a much higher pleasure in exploring a life than following out an allegory." "You are a true lover of mystery, Miss Margaret. You should have lived a thousand years ago." "Thank you: I am very glad I did not. But why so long ago? Are there not mysteries enough left?" "And will there not be enough a thousand years hence?" said Hester. "I am afraid not. You and I cannot venture to speak upon what the Germans may be doing. But these two ladies can tell us, perhaps, whether they are not clearing everything up very fast;--making windows in your cave, Miss Margaret, till nobody will be afraid to look into every cranny of it." "And then our complaint," said Miss Young, "will be like Mrs Howell's, when somebody told her that we were to have the Drummond light on every church steeple. `Oh dear, ma'am!' said she, `we shall not know how in the world to get any darkness.'"