needed no word from Latona herself to rouse her children to vengeance.
Swift as a thought, the two immortal archers, brother and sister, stood in
Thebes, upon the towers of the citadel. Near by, the youth were pursuing
their sports, while the feast of Latona went neglected. The sons of Queen
Niobe were there, and against them Apollo bent his golden bow. An arrow
crossed the air like a sunbeam, and without a word the eldest prince fell
from his horse. One by one his brothers died by the same hand, so swiftly
that they knew not what had befallen them, till all the sons of the royal
house lay slain. Only the people of Thebes, stricken with terror, bore the
news to Queen Niobe, where she sat with her seven daughters. She would not
believe in such a sorrow.

"Savage Latona," she cried, lifting her arms against the heavens, "never
think that you have conquered. I am still the greater."

At that moment one of her daughters sank beside her. Diana had sped an
arrow from her bow that is like the crescent moon. Without a cry, nay,
even as they murmured words of comfort, the sisters died, one by one. It
was all as swift and soundless as snowfall.

Only the guilty mother was left, transfixed with grief. Tears flowed from
her eyes, but she spoke not a word, her heart never softened; and at last
she turned to stone, and the tears flowed down her cold face forever.

PYRAMUS AND THISBE

By Josephine Preston Peabody

Venus did not always befriend true lovers, as she had befriended
Hippomenes, with her three golden apples. Sometimes, in the enchanted
island of Cyprus, she forgot her worshipers far away, and they called on
her in vain.

So it was in the sad story of Hero and Leander, who lived on opposite
borders of the Hellespont. Hero dwelt at Sestos, where she served as a
priestess, in the very temple of Venus; and Leander's home was in Abydos,
a town on the opposite shore. But every night this lover would swim across
the water to see Hero, guided by the light which she was wont to set in
her tower. Even such loyalty could not conquer fate. There came a great
storm, one night, that put out the beacon, and washed Leander's body up
with the waves to Hero, and she sprang into the water to rejoin him, and
so perished.

Not wholly unlike this was the fate of Halcyone, a queen of Thessaly, who
dreamed that her husband Ceyx had been drowned, and on waking hastened to
the shore to look for him. There she saw her dream come true