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Clytie

    C LYTIE and her sister, Leucothea, were water nymphs. Early every morning they used to come up from the depths of their river, with other nymphs from neighboring streams and fountains, and dance among the water-plants on its shores. But with the first rays of the rising sun, all the dancers plunged back into the water and disappeared; for that was the law among water-nymphs.
    One morning Clytie and Leucothea broke this law. When the sun began to show above the hills, and all the other nymphs rushed back to their streams, these two sat on the bank of their river, and watched for the coming of the sun-god. Then as Helios drove his horses across the sky, they sat and watched him all day long.
    They thought they had never seen anything so glorious. The god sat in his golden chariot with his crown on his head, and kept a firm rein on the four fire-breathing horses. The sisters were dazzled by the glitter of the chariot and the radiance of the jewelled crown. Helios smiled upon them, and they were happy.
    When night came, they returned to their river, where they could think of nothing else but Helios and his golden chariot.
    Before morning they fell to quarrelling, as sisters sometimes will. Then Clytie told King Oceanus how Leucothea had broken the law of the water-nymphs, but she did not say that she herself had broken it also. King Oceanus was very angry, and shut Leucothea up in a cave.
    Just before daylight, Clytie went up to dance with the other nymphs, as usual, and once more she remained on the shore all day to watch the Sun. This time Helios would not smile upon her, because he knew she had been unkind to her sister. When night came, she did not go down to her home at the bottom of the river, but sat on its sandy bank, waiting for the coming of the Sun; and when he came again, she watched him, all day, and so on for nine days and nine nights. As she had broken the law, she did not dare to go home, therefore she had nothing to live on but the dew which fell from the sky. She grew so very thin that you would have thought the wind might blow her away. Foolish Clytie!
    Yet, she sat there and watched the Sun, who never looked her way, and never smiled on her any more. At last her dainty feet, that had danced so lightly with the other nymphs, took root in the loose sand; her fluttering garments became green leaves; and her face, which was always turned toward the Sun, became a flower.
    This flower still grows, in wet, sandy places, and still it turns slowly on its stem, always keeping its face toward the sun.

The Seven Sisters

    A MONG the nymphs of Diana's train were seven sisters, the daughters of Atlas. On moonlight nights these sisters used to dance in the forest glades; and one night Orion, the hunter, saw them dimly through the trees. They looked like a flock of beautiful wild birds, and the sight made the hunter's heart beat loud and fast. Just as he had chased the deer so many times, he began now to chase these nymphs. Not that he meant to hurt them, but he wanted to go near enough to them to see them better. The nymphs were frightened and ran away swiftly through the trees. The faster they ran, the faster Orion followed.
    At last the poor frightened sisters came out into an open place, where it was almost as light as day, and there Orion nearly overtook them. Seeing how near he was, the sisters called to Diana for help; and then, when they were almost in the hunter's grasp, they suddenly disappeared, and seven white pigeons rose from the grass where they had been, and flew away—up, up, into the night sky.
    When they reached the sky, the seven pigeons became seven bright stars. There the stars shone, in a little group, close together, for hundreds of years. They were called the Pleiades.
    Long after the time when the frightened nymphs were changed first into pigeons, and then into stars, one of the sisters left her place among the Pleiades, that she might not see the fall of Troy. While this city was