I saw a blue-eyed child, with sunny curls, toddling on the lawn before the door of a happy home. He toddled under the trees, prattling to the birds and playing with the ripening apples that fell upon the ground. He toddled among the roses and plucked their leaves as he would have plucked an angel's wing, strewing their glory upon the green grass at his feet. He chased the butterflies from flower to flower, and shouted with glee as they eluded his grasp and sailed away on the summer air. Here I thought his childish fancy had built a paradise and peopled it with dainty seraphim and made himself its Adam. He saw the sunshine of Eden glint on every leaf and beam in every petal. The flitting honey-bee, the wheeling June-bug, the fluttering breeze, the silvery pulse-beat of the dashing brook sounded in his ear notes of its swelling music. The iris-winged humming-bird, darting like a sunbeam, to kiss the pouting lips of the upturned flowers was, to him, the impersonation of its beauty. And I said: Truly, this is the nearest approach in this world, to the paradise of long ago. Then I saw him skulking like a cupid, in the shrubbery, his skirts bedraggled and soiled, his face downcast with guilt. He had stirred up the Mediterranean Sea in the slop bucket, and waded the Atlantic Ocean in a mud puddle. He had capsized the goslings, and shipwrecked the young ducks, and drowned the kitten which he imagined a whale, and I said: _There_ is the original Adam coming to the surface. [Illustration: THE PARADISE OF CHILDHOOD.] "Lo'd bless my soul! Jist look at dat chile!" shouted his dusky old nurse, as she lifted him, dripping, from the reeking pond. "What's you bin doin' in dat mud puddle? Look at dat face, an' dem hands an' close, all kivvered wid mud an' mulberry juice! You bettah not let yo' mammy see you while you's in dat fix. You's gwine to ketch it sho'. You's jist zackly like yo' fader--allers git'n into some scrape or nuddah, allers breakin' into some kind uv devilment--gwine to break into congrus some uv dese days sho'. Come along wid me dis instinct to de baff tub. I's a-gwine to dispurgate dem close an' 'lucidate some uv dat dirt off'n dat face uv yone, you triflin' rascal you!" And so saying, she carried him away, kicking and screaming like a young savage in open rebellion, and I said: _There_ is some more of the original Adam. Then I saw him come forth again, washed and combed, and dressed in spotless white, like a young butterfly fresh from its chrysalis. And when he got a chance, I saw him slip on his tip-toes, into the pantry; I heard the clink of glassware, As if a mouse were playing there,