Page:The-story-of-the-golden-fleece--281903-29-andrew-lang.djvu/30

The Story of the Golden Fleece clouds in the sky, and when there was rain, then their mother, Nephele, was always with them; but when the summer days were hot and cloudless, then she went away, they did not know where. The long dry days made her grow pale and thin, and, at last, she would vanish altogether, and never come again, till the sky grew soft and gray with rain.

Now King Athamas grew weary of this, for often his wife would be long away. Besides there was a very beautiful girl called Ino, a dark girl, who had come in a ship of merchantmen from a far-off country, and had stayed in the city of the king when her friends sailed for Greece. The king saw her, and often she would be at the palace, playing with the children when their mother had disappeared with the Clouds, 24