ich the reviving rain had brought with it. The little
round window fairly glistened as its shining face caught the golden
radiance of the last beams of the setting sun. "Ah, look at the round
mill window!" said the miller's wife, "the rain has washed it bright and
clean. See how it reflects the sunset. To-morrow we will go up and get a
view of the ocean from it--I had almost forgotten it."

_THE STRANGE STORY OF A WONDERFUL SEA-GOD._

I am going to tell you to-day one of the strangest stories that has ever
been told to little children. It is such a wonderful story that even
grown people read it again and again.

Three thousand years ago Greek mothers used to tell it to their children
as they sat together on the seashore. It is about a famous king, named
Menelaus, who after a long and cruel war was over, started in his good
ship for his much loved home in Sparta. Thinking only of himself in his
impatience to get home, he forgot to give worship to the gods, to thank
them for his deliverance and to ask them to guide him safely to his
journey's end. We shall soon see what trouble his thoughtlessness
brought upon him, and not him alone, but all his followers.

In those days there were no great ocean steamers such as we have now,
therefore Menelaus and his men had to cross the dark, mysterious sea in
small boats which they rowed with oars. Sometimes when the wind was
favorable they would hoist a sail and thus be helped along on their
journey. As it was impossible for them to go forward when the strong,
though invisible, wind was not blowing in a favorable direction, you can
easily imagine their dismay when, having stopped one evening in a
sheltered bay on the coast of a small island, they awoke next morning to
find the wind blowing steadily in the opposite direction from the one in
which they wished to sail. They waited all day hoping that the strong
breeze would die down, or change its direction. The next day and the
next passed and still the wind blew steadily away from their beloved
homes. Although it _was_ invisible it had more strength than all of
them, and they could make no headway against it. Had they not watched it
lift huge waves high in the air and dash them against the sharp rocks?
Had they not seen it twist and turn the strong branches of great trees,
and sometimes bend, and even _break_ their mighty trunks? And yet they
knew at other times how gentle it could be. Had they not listened to its
soft, low