hat will be more precious to her than any. I will give
her a heart that shall be proof against all the onsets of the world.'
So saying the Goddess of Envy took away the child's heart and put in its
place a heart of stone, hard as adamant, bright and glittering as a gem.
And the Goddess of Envy went her way mocking. The King and Queen were
greatly concerned, and they asked the gods and goddesses whether their
daughter would ever recover her human heart. They were told that the
Goddess of Envy would be obliged to give back the child's heart to the
man who loved her enough to seek and to find it, and this would surely
happen; but when and how it was forbidden to them to reveal.

"The child grew up and became the wonder of the world. She was married
to a powerful King, and they lived in peace and plenty until the Goddess
of Envy once more troubled the child's life. For owing to her subtle
planning a Prince was promised for wife the fairest woman in the world,
and he took the wife of the powerful King and carried her away to Asia
to the six-gated city. The King prepared a host of ships and armed men
and sailed to Asia to win back his wife. And he and his army fought for
ten years until the six-gated city was taken, and he brought his wife
home once more. Now during all the time the war lasted, although the
whole world was filled with the fame of the King's wife and of her
beauty, there was not found one man who was willing to seek for her
heart and to find it, for some gave no credence to the tale, and others,
believing it, reasoned that the quest might last a life-time, and that
by the time they accomplished it the King's wife would be an old woman,
and there would be fairer women in the world. Others, again, could not
believe that in so perfect a woman there could be any fault; they vowed
her heart must be one with her matchless beauty, and they said that even
if the tale were true, they preferred to worship her as she was, and
they would not have her be otherwise or changed by a hair's breadth for
all the world. Some, indeed, did set out upon the quest, but abandoned
it soon from weariness and returned to bask in the beauty of the great
Queen.

"The years went by. The Queen journeyed to Egypt, to the mountains of
the South, and the cities of the desert; to the Pillars of Hercules and
to the islands of the West. Wherever she went her fame spread like fire,
and men fought and died for a glimpse of her marvellous beauty; and