Volume 1 of 2. This work consists of a series of novellas. Volume 1 includes "Vice Versa," a tale based on an old story of a punctiliously polite Greek, who, while performing the funeral of an infant daughter, felt bound to make his excuses to the spectators for "bringing out such a ridiculously small corpse to so large a crowd;" and "The Tinted Venus," a tale of a talking statue of Aphrodite who takes Matilda's brother, Leander, as her own.