“She is the child of the river.”

“Yes, dear river,” she said, “let me be your child.”

The river smiled and answered her in a way which she alone could understand; and always, after that, she called it “Father Peneus.”

One day when the sun shone warm, and the air was filled with the perfume of flowers, Daphne wandered farther away from the river than she had ever gone before.  She passed through a shady wood and climbed a hill, from the top of which she could see Father Peneus lying white and clear and smiling in the valley below.  Beyond her were other hills, and then the green slopes and wooded top of great Mount Ossa.  Ah, if she could only climb to the summit of Ossa, she might have a view of the sea, and of other mountains close by, and of the twin peaks of Mount Parnassus, far, far to the south!

“Good-by, Father Peneus,” she said.  “I am going to climb the mountain; but I will come back soon.”

The river smiled, and Daphne ran onward, climbing one hill after another, and wondering why the great mountain seemed still so far away.  By and by she came to the foot of a wooded slope where there was a pretty waterfall and the ground was bespangled with thousands of beautiful flowers; and she sat down there a moment to rest.  Then from the grove on the hilltop above her, came the sound of the loveliest music she had ever heard.  She stood up and listened.  Some one was playing on a lyre, and some one was singing.  She was frightened; and still the music was so charming that she could not run away.

Then, all at once, the sound ceased, and a young man, tall and fair and with a face as bright as the morning sun, came down the hillside towards her.

“Daphne!” he said; but she did not stop to hear.  She turned and fled like a frightened deer, back towards the Vale of Tempe.

“Daphne!” cried the young man.  She did not know that it was Apollo, the Lord of the Silver Bow; she only knew that the stranger was following her, and she ran as fast as her fleet feet could carry her.  No young man had ever spoken to her before, and the sound of his voice filled her heart with fear.

“She is the fairest maiden that I ever saw,” said Apollo to himself.  “If I could only look at her face again and speak with her, how happy I should be.”

Through brake, through brier, over rocks and the trunks of fallen trees, down rugged slopes, across mountain streams, leaping, flying, panting, Daphne ran.  She looked not once behind her, but she heard the swift footsteps of Apollo coming always nearer; she heard the rattle of the silver bow which hung from his shoulders; she heard his very breath, he was so close to her.  At last she was in the valley where the ground was smooth and it was easier running, but her strength was fast leaving her.  Right before her, however, lay the river, white and smiling in the sunlight.  She stretched out her arms and cried: