sea. They called the first of these
letters _alpha_ and the second _beta_, and that is why men speak of the
_alphabet_ to this day. And when the Greeks had learned the alphabet
from Cadmus, they soon began to read and write, and to make beautiful
and useful books.

As for the maiden Europa, she was carried safe over the sea to a distant
shore. She may have been happy in the new, strange land to which she was
taken--I cannot tell; but she never heard of friends or home again.
Whether it was really Jupiter in the form of a bull that carried her
away, nobody knows. It all happened so long ago that there may have been
some mistake about the story; and I should not think it strange if it
were a sea robber who stole her from her home, and a swift ship with
white sails that bore her away. Of one thing I am very sure: she was
loved so well by all who knew her that the great unknown country to
which she was taken has been called after her name ever since--Europe.

[Illustration:]

THE QUEST OF MEDUSA'S HEAD.

I. THE WOODEN CHEST.

There was a king of Argos who had but one child, and that child was a
girl. If he had had a son, he would have trained him up to be a brave
man and great king; but he did not know what to do with this fair-haired
daughter. When he saw her growing up to be tall and slender and wise, he
wondered if, after all, he would have to die some time and leave his
lands and his gold and his kingdom to her. So he sent to Delphi and
asked the Pythia about it. The Pythia told him that he would not only
have to die some time, but that the son of his daughter would cause his
death.

This frightened the king very much, and he tried to think of some plan
by which he could keep the Pythia's words from coming true. At last he
made up his mind that he would build a prison for his daughter and keep
her in it all her life. So he called his workmen and had them dig a deep
round hole in the ground, and in this hole they built a house of brass
which had but one room and no door at all, but only a small window at
the top. When it was finished, the king put the maiden, whose name was
Danae, into it; and with her he put her nurse and her toys and her
pretty dresses and everything that he thought she would need to make her
happy.

"Now we shall see that the Pythia does not always tell the truth," he
said.

So Danae was kept shut up in the prison of brass. She had no one to talk
to but her old nurse; and she never