this wise did Psyche, a human soul, attain by bitter suffering to
the perfect happiness of purified love.

And still do we watch the butterfly, which is her emblem, bursting
from its ugly tomb in the dark soil, and spreading joyous white and
gold-powdered wings in the caressing sunshine, amidst the radiance and
the fragrance of the summer flowers. Still, too, do we sadly watch her
sister, the white moth, heedlessly rushing into pangs unutterable,
thoughtlessly seeking the anguish that brings her a cruel death.

THE CALYDONIAN HUNT

OEneus and Althaea were king and queen of Calydon, and to them was
born a son who was his mother's joy and yet her bitterest sorrow.
Meleager was his name, and ere his birth his mother dreamed a dream
that the child that she bore was a burning firebrand. But when the
baby came he was a royal child indeed, a little fearless king from the
first moment that his eyes, like unseeing violets, gazed steadily up
at his mother. To the chamber where he lay by his mother's side came
the three Fates, spinning, ceaselessly spinning.

"He shall be strong," said one, as she span her thread. "He shall be
fortunate and brave," said the second. But the third laid a billet of
wood on the flames, and while her withered fingers held the fatal
threads, she looked with old, old, sad eyes at the new-born child.

"To thee, O New-Born," she said, "and to this wood that burns, do we
give the same span of days to live."

From her bed sprang Althaea, and, heedless of the flames, she seized
the burning wood, trod on it with her fair white feet, and poured on
it water that swiftly quenched its red glow. "Thou shalt live forever,
O Beloved," she said, "for never again shall fire char the brand that
I have plucked from the burning."

And the baby laughed.

"Those grey women with bound hair
Who fright the gods frighted not him; he laughed
Seeing them, and pushed out hands to feel and haul
Distaff and thread."

The years sped on, and from fearless and beautiful babyhood, Meleager
grew into gallant boyhood, and then into magnificent youth. When Jason
and his heroes sailed away into a distant land to win the Golden
Fleece, Meleager was one of the noble band. From all men living he won
great praise for his brave deeds, and when the tribes of the north and
west made war upon AEtolia, he fought against their army and scattered
it as a wind in autumn drives the fallen leaves before it.

But his