She told me to amuse myself during her forty winks by looking at the treasures in the glass-doored cupboards, which she knew I was very fond of admiring, and she told me I might open the book cupboard if I wanted to take out a book, but on no account any of the others.
"Now I assure you, children, and by your own experience you will believe what I say, that, but for my grandmother's warnings, the idea of opening the glass doors when by myself would never have come into my head.

I had often been in the drawing-room alone and gazed admiringly at the treasures without ever dreaming of examining them more closely.

I had never even _wished_ to do so, any more than one wishes to handle the moon or stars or any other un-get-at-able objects.

But now, unfortunately, the idea was suggested, it had been put into my head, and there it stayed.

I walked round the room gazing in at the cupboards in turn--the book ones did not particularly attract me--long ago I had read, over and over again, the few books in my grandmother's possession that I could feel interested in, and I stood still at last in front of the prettiest cupboard of all, wishing that grandmother had not forbidden my opening it.