Lives of Alcyone

however, proved to be of a trying temper, and he often looked back
with regret on his happy free life in the forest. On one occasion
when he was out hunting in the forest where he had lived so long,
he contrived to separate himself from his companions and went to
look at the hut which he had built for his sister-wife, but he found it
deserted.
Orion had lived on there for many years and had seen her
children grow up healthy and beautiful. She had no difficulty with
regard to food, for the various traps which Ursa had made were still
in action and she was able to gather fruit and dig up roots as he had
done. When her children grew old enough to need clothing she
wove it for them from reeds, and they lived a natural and happy life,
though she sorrowed much because of the desertion of her brother
and husband. She always cherished the hope that some time of
other he would return to her, and that in process of time her son
would sit upon the throne of his ancestors.
Presently it occurred to her that, if this were to be so, she
must manage to bring her children somehow into contact with their
fellow-creatures, that they might not be entirely strange to them; so
she dressed herself in what remained of the clothes in which she
had originally escaped, and made her way to a village where she
was able to exchange the skin of the creatures that they had killed
for some clothing, such as peasants wear, suitable for the children
and herself. She was then able to take her children once or twice on
expeditions to villages in the remote part of the country where the
forest was situated, but she did not visit the same village twice, lest
suspicion should be excited, and she always gave out that she and
her children were travellers passing through the country. As the
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