n, as if to assure the mariners that it would fill their sails
and help them to return to Egypt if they would only launch their boats
and turn the prows eastward.

This they did the very next day, and soon were back on Egypt's shore.
Due worship was paid to the gods, and then right merrily the wind
whistled and sang about their ears as it filled their white sails and
helped them to speed across the blue water, and in a few days they had
reached their beloved home-land.

But never to the end of their lives did they forget the terrible
struggle with the Mighty Proteus, Ancient of the Deep, where by _holding
on_ they had won the silent battle. And oftentimes they told the story
to their children and grandchildren, just as I am telling it to you,
to-day.

_THE VISION OF DANTE._

I want to tell a beautiful story to you, dear children. It has been told
over and over again for six hundred years, yet people keep reading it,
and re-reading it, and wise men never tire of studying it. Many great
artists have painted pictures, and sculptors have made statues, and
musicians have composed operas, and clergymen have written sermons from
thoughts inspired by it. A great poet first gave it to the world in the
form of a grand poem which some day you may read, but I will try to tell
it to you to-day as a short story. I am afraid that you would go to
sleep if I should undertake to read the poem to you. You do not yet know
enough about life to understand it.

Once upon a time, very long ago, there was a man whose name was Dante.
He had done wrong and had wandered a long way from his home. He does not
tell us how, or why. He begins by saying that he had gone to sleep in a
great forest. Suddenly he awoke, and tried to find his way out of it,
first by one path, and then another; but all in vain.

Through an opening where the tall trees had not grown quite so thick, he
saw in the distance a great mountain, on the top of which the sun was
shining brightly. "Ah!" thought he to himself, "if I can but reach the
top of that mountain I am sure I can see a long way in every direction.
No woods can grow tall enough to keep me from finding my path then!" So
with new courage he started toward the mountain, but he had not walked
far when a beautiful spotted panther stood with glaring eyes in his
pathway. He trembled, for he knew that going forward meant that he would
be destroyed. He turned hastily aside into another path, but he had gone
o