d, had their plot succeeded;
their malice had drunk deep, yet deeper still they drank, for with
scornful laughter they drove her from their palace doors. Very
quickly, when she had gone, the elder sought the place where she had
stood when Zephyrus bore her in safety to that palace of pleasure
where Psyche dwelt with her Love. Now that Psyche was no longer there,
surely the god by whom she had been beloved would gladly have as her
successor the beautiful woman who was now much more fair than the
white-faced girl with eyes all red with weeping. And such certainty
did the vengeful gods put in her heart that she held out her arms, and
calling aloud:

"Bear me to him in thine arms, Zephyrus! Behold I come, my lord!" she
sprang from the high cliff on which she stood, into space. And the
ravens that night feasted on her shattered body. So also did it befall
the younger sister, deluded by the Olympians to her own destruction,
so that her sin might be avenged.

For many a weary day and night Psyche wandered, ever seeking to find
her Love, ever longing to do something by which to atone for the deed
that had been her undoing. From temple to temple she went, but nowhere
did she come near him, until at length in Cyprus she came to the place
where Aphrodite herself had her dwelling. And inasmuch as her love had
made her very bold, and because she no longer feared death, nor could
think of pangs more cruel than those that she already knew, Psyche
sought the presence of the goddess who was her enemy, and humbly
begged her to take her life away.

With flaming scorn and anger Aphrodite received her.

"O thou fool," she said, "I will not let thee die!
But thou shalt reap the harvest thou hast sown,
And many a day that wretched lot bemoan;
Thou art my slave, and not a day shall be
But I will find some fitting task for thee."

There began then for Psyche a time of torturing misery of which only
those could speak who have knowledge of the merciless stripes with
which the goddess can scourge the hearts of her slaves. With cruel
ingenuity, Aphrodite invented labours for her.

In uncountable quantity, and mingled in inextricable and bewildering
confusion, there lay in the granary of the goddess grains of barley
and of wheat, peas and millet, poppy and coriander seed. To sort out
each kind and lay them in heaps was the task allotted for one day, and
woe be to her did she fail. In despair, Psyche began her hopeless
la