Uncle Stephen and the good frau found life in Sprigg Court too comfortable to want to move. Little Elaine was such a pet, and dear Bertha was so much like her mother! It ended when they took the rest of the house upstairs, and Uncle Stephen made Max his man of business in that curious commerce of his with Natal and the Mozambique Channel. * * * * * Still Max's conscience sometimes disturbs him. In one of such moods he comes to me to confess and receive counsel. Absolution I do not give. And it is thus, gentle reader, that it happens that I tell his story to you. THE MODERN PSYCHE.[1] [Footnote 1: Readers not quite at home in Mrs. Tighe or Apuleius may be glad to revive their memories of the ancient Psyche by this note from the Cyclopedia. The prettiest rendering of that story is in William Morris's "Earthly Paradise"; but the reader will ask himself seriously whether it be anything but an allegory to cover the moral in the matter-of-fact tale before him. Psyche, whose two elder sisters were of moderate beauty, was so lovely that she was taken for Venus herself, and men dared only to adore her as a goddess, not to love her. This excited the jealousy of Venus, who, to revenge herself, ordered Cupid to inspire her with love for some contemptible wretch. But Cupid fell in love with her himself. Meanwhile her father, desiring to see his daughter married, consulted the oracle of Apollo, which commanded that Psyche should be conveyed, with funeral rites, to the summit of a mountain, and there left, for she was destined to be the bride of a destructive monster, in the form of a dragon, feared by gods and men. With sorrow was the oracle obeyed, and Psyche was left alone on the desert rock, when suddenly Zephyr hovers around her, gently raises and transports her to a beautiful palace of the God of Love, who visits her every night, unseen and unknown, leaving her at the approach of day. Perfect happiness would have been the lot of Psyche, if, obedient to the warning of her lover, she had never been curious to know him better. But by the artifices of her jealous sisters, whom she had admitted to visit her, contrary to the commands of Cupid, she was persuaded that she held a monster in her arms, and curiosity triumphed. As he slept, she entered with a lamp to examine him, and discovered the most beautiful of the gods. In her joy and astonishment she let a drop of the heated oil fall upon his shoulders. Cupid awoke, and, having reproached the astonished Psyche for her suspicions, fled. She wandered everywhere in search of her beloved, but she had lost him. Venus kept her near her person, treated her as a slave, and imposed on her the severest and most trying tasks. Psyche would have sunk under the burdens had not Cupid, who still tenderly loved her, secretly assisted her in her labors. When Psyche was finally reunited to Cupid in Olympus, her envious sisters threw themselves from a precipice.] CHAPTER I.