Lives of Alcyone

servant’ s son Scorpio, and caused enquiry to be made for
Alcyone. After some trouble she was found, and her son Hector
placed upon the throne, it became her duty to look after and advise
him, and she rose nobly to the emergency, making determined
efforts to check the impulsiveness of her former life, and to be
always patient and gentle with him. For sometime she practically
governed the little State wisely and well, and by admirable prudence
and restraint she made it happy and flourishing.
There was, however, a strong party of the supporters of the
previous corrupt court who, having been dispossessed, were
inwardly disloyal to the new regime, and opposed her effort to do
justice whenever they dared. Presently the young King married
Regulus, but his wife did not prove satisfactory. She had much
personal ambition, and was jealous of the influence of his mother
over him, so that she worked against Alcyone, and tried to
undermine her power and to inveigle the young King into taking
action which his mother disapproved. For some years this
unsatisfactory condition of affairs went on, the new Queen trying to
make a party of her own.
Eventually she had a long and serious illness, following upon
the birth of one of her children. Alcyone nursed her through this, and
took such unremitting care of her little children that Regulus began
to see her true character, and came to love her. After her recovery,
therefore, she entirely withdrew her old opposition, and everything
worked much more smoothly. The Queen-dowager, Alastor, the
supposed mother of the deposed King, who had been sent away
into exile, returned secretly and stirred up a plot to restore that
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