Then, indeed, it would have hung its head in shame if it could have done so, but although a window has a face, it has no head, you know, so that all it could do was to turn itself on its wooden pivots until its round face was ready to catch any drop of rain that might fall. Nor did it have long to wait. The beautiful white clouds which had been drifting dreamily across the blue sky, changed into soft gray, and then their under parts became a heavy, dark gray, and soon they began massing themselves together. The wind arose and hurried the smaller clouds across the sky as a general might marshal his troops for a battle, and in a little while the whole heavens were covered with gray, not even a single spot of blue sky remained, nor could one yellow sunbeam be seen on the whole landscape. The low rumble of thunder could now be heard, and quick flashes of lightning darted from raincloud to raincloud and back again as if they were messengers sent to see if all was in readiness for the storm. Soon down poured the rain. Not even the thirsty earth itself was more glad to receive the tens of thousands of water-drops than was the little round window in the top story of the tall mill. It not only had its outside face freed from the dust and soot, but with some help from the wind, it managed to turn its inside face out and thus be cleansed within as well as without. At last the storm passed away; the sun shone again; the trees rustled their fresh, shining, green leaves, and all nature rejoiced in the renewed life which the reviving rain had brought with it. The little round window fairly glistened as its shining face caught the golden radiance of the last beams of the setting sun. "Ah, look at the round mill window!" said the miller's wife, "the rain has washed it bright and clean. See how it reflects the sunset. To-morrow we will go up and get a view of the ocean from it--I had almost forgotten it." _THE STRANGE STORY OF A WONDERFUL SEA-GOD._ I am going to tell you to-day one of the strangest stories that has ever been told to little children. It is such a wonderful story that even grown people read it again and again. Three thousand years ago Greek mothers used to tell it to their children as they sat together on the seashore. It is about a famous king, named Menelaus, who after a long and cruel war was over, started in his good ship for his much loved home in Sparta. Thinking only of himself in his impatience to get home, he forgot to give worship to the gods, to thank them for his deliverance and to ask them to guide him safely to his journey's end. We shall soon see what trouble his thoughtlessness brought upon him, and not him alone, but all his followers.