All this time Jupiter might have helped her had he not been so much afraid of Juno.  But now it so chanced that when the poor cow lay down by the bank of the Nile, Queen Juno, in her high house in the clouds, also lay down to take a nap.  As soon as she was sound asleep, Jupiter like a flash of light sped over the sea to Egypt.  He killed the cruel gadfly and threw it into the river.  Then he stroked the cow’s head with his hand, and the cow was seen no more; but in her place stood the young girl Io, pale and frail, but fair and good as she had been in her old home in the town of Argos.  Jupiter said not a word, nor even showed himself to the tired, trembling maiden.  He hurried back with all speed to his high home in the clouds, for he feared that Juno might waken and find out what he had done.

The people of Egypt were kind to Io, and gave her a home in their sunny land; and by and by the king of Egypt asked her to be his wife, and made her his queen; and she lived a long and happy life in his marble palace on the bank of the Nile.  Ages afterward, the great-grandson of the great-grandson of Io’s great-grandson broke the chains of Prometheus and set that mighty friend of mankind free.

The name of the hero was Hercules.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

THE WONDERFUL WEAVER.

I. The warp.

There was a young girl in Greece whose name was Arachne.  Her face was pale but fair, and her eyes were big and blue, and her hair was long and like gold.  All that she cared to do from morn till noon was to sit in the sun and spin; and all that she cared to do from noon till night was to sit in the shade and weave.

And oh, how fine and fair were the things which she wove in her loom!  Flax, wool, silk—­she worked with them all; and when they came from her hands, the cloth which she had made of them was so thin and soft and bright that men came from all parts of the world to see it.  And they said that cloth so rare could not be made of flax, or wool, or silk, but that the warp was of rays of sunlight and the woof was of threads of gold.

Then as, day by day, the girl sat in the sun and span, or sat in the shade and wove, she said:  “In all the world there is no yarn so fine as mine, and in all the world there is no cloth so soft and smooth, nor silk so bright and rare.”

[Illustration:  “‘Arachne, I am Athena, the queen of the air.’”]

“Who taught you to spin and weave so well?” some one asked.

“No one taught me,” she said.  “I learned how to do it as I sat in the sun and the shade; but no one showed me.”

“But it may be that Athena, the queen of the air, taught you, and you did not know it.”

“Athena, the queen of the air?  Bah!” said Arachne.  “How could she teach me?  Can she spin such skeins of yarn as these?  Can she weave goods like mine?  I should like to see her try.  I can teach her a thing or two.”