Lives of Alcyone

husband had left her. She would willingly have shared poverty with
Sirius, but feared to ass to his burdens; and they both felt that since
such unforeseen obstacles had twice arisen to prevent their union ,
perhaps the Gods did not wish them to marry.
Alcyone attached herself to the chief temple, and studied
under Mercury, who had made wonderful progress in mystic lore,
while Sirius devoted himself to the uncongenial task of trying to
make money in order to buy back his ancestral home. It took him
nearly twenty years to do this, but he succeeded at last, and then
once more, at the age of sixty, he discussed with Alcyone the
subject of marriage. She had long been devoted to the temple
services and studies, and had made great advancement in them,
and in order to marry she would have had to give up the position
which she had gained in the temple work, so after thinking the offer
over carefully and consulting Mercury and Uranus, they both agreed,
though with certain pangs of regret, that they would still continue to
offer their lives separately as a sacrifice to the Gods, as they had
done hitherto. Cygnus, one of the students in the temple, had long
ago fallen in love with Alcyone, and had several times asked her to
marry him, but without success.
Vega married an old playmate of his childhood, Ursa, the
daughter of an Indian king who had been driven from his kingdom
and had taken refuge on the banks of the Nile. They lived happily
and had two beautiful children, Andromeda and Draco, and Sirius
and Alcyone hovered over these children as though they had been
their own. Quite a class of students were by this time working under
the direction of Mercury, and this was the principal; interest of the
latter part of Alcyone’ s life.