six with that good-for-nothing King of Darkness!"

"Do not speak so harshly of poor King Pluto," said Proserpina, kissing her
mother. "He has some very good qualities, and I really think I can bear to
spend six months in his palace, if he will only let me spend the other six
with you. He certainly did very wrong to carry me off; but then, as he
says, it was but a dismal sort of life for him, to live in that great
gloomy place, all alone; and it has made a wonderful change in his spirits
to have a little girl to run up stairs and down. There is some comfort in
making him so happy; and so, upon the whole, dearest mother, let us be
thankful that he is not to keep me the whole year round."

OLD GREEK FOLK-STORIES

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE

By Josephine Preston Peabody

When gods and shepherds piped and the stars sang, that was the day of
musicians! But the triumph of Phoebus Apollo himself was not so wonderful
as the triumph of a mortal man who lived on earth, though some say that he
came of divine lineage. This was Orpheus, that best of harpers, who went
with the Grecian heroes of the great ship Argo in search of the Golden
Fleece.

After his return from the quest, he won Eurydice for his wife, and they
were as happy as people can be who love each other and every one else. The
very wild beasts loved them, and the trees clustered about their home as
if they were watered with music. But even the gods themselves were not
always free from sorrow, and one day misfortune came upon that harper
Orpheus whom all men loved to honor.

Eurydice, his lovely wife, as she was wandering with the nymphs,
unwittingly trod upon a serpent in the grass. Surely, if Orpheus had been
with her, playing upon his lyre, no creature could have harmed her. But
Orpheus came too late. She died of the sting, and was lost to him in the
Underworld.

For days he wandered from his home, singing the story of his loss and his
despair to the helpless passers-by. His grief moved the very stones in the
wilderness, and roused a dumb distress in the hearts of savage beasts.
Even the gods on Mount Olympus gave ear, but they held no power over the
darkness of Hades.

Wherever Orpheus wandered with his lyre, no one had the will to forbid him
entrance; and at length he found unguarded that very cave that leads to
the Underworld, where Pluto rules the spirits of the dead. He went down
without fear. The fire in his living heart found him a way through the