not let fall from her hand.  It is my opinion that even King Pluto had never been happy in his palace, and that this was the true reason why he had stolen away Proserpina, in order that he might have something to love, instead of cheating his heart any longer with this tiresome magnificence.  And, though he pretended to dislike the sunshine of the upper world, yet the effect of the child’s presence, bedimmed as she was by her tears, was as if a faint and watery sunbeam had somehow or other found its way into the enchanted hall.

Pluto now summoned his domestics, and bade them lose no time in preparing a most sumptuous banquet, and above all things, not to fail of setting a golden beaker of the water of Lethe by Proserpina’s plate.

“I will neither drink that nor anything else,” said Proserpina.  “Nor will I taste a morsel of food, even if you keep me forever in your palace.” on the seashore, she hastened thither as fast as she could, and there beheld the wet faces of the poor sea-nymphs peeping over a wave.  All this while, the good creatures had been waiting on the bank of sponge, and once every half-minute or so, had popped up their four heads above water, to see if their playmate were yet coming back.  When they saw Mother Ceres, they sat down on the crest of the surf wave, and let it toss them ashore at her feet.

“Where is Proserpina?” cried Ceres.  “Where is my child?  Tell me, you naughty sea-nymphs, have you enticed her under the sea?”

“Oh, no, good Mother Ceres,” said the innocent sea-nymphs, tossing back their green ringlets, and looking her in the face.  “We never should dream of such a thing.  Proserpina has been at play with us, it is true; but she left us a long while ago, meaning only to run a little way upon the dry land, and gather some flowers for a wreath.  This was early in the day, and we have seen nothing of her since.”

Ceres scarcely waited to hear what the nymphs had to say, before she hurried off to make inquiries all through the neighborhood.  But nobody told her anything that could enable the poor mother to guess what had become of Proserpina.  A fisherman, it is true, had noticed her little footprints in the sand, as he went homeward along the beach with a basket of fish; a rustic had seen the child stooping to gather flowers; several persons had heard either the rattling of chariot-wheels or the rumbling of distant thunder; and one old woman, while plucking vervain and catnip, had heard a scream, but supposed it to be some childish nonsense, and therefore did not take the trouble to look up.  The stupid people!  It took them such a tedious while to tell the nothing that they knew, that it was dark night before Mother Ceres found out that she must seek her daughter elsewhere.  So she lighted a torch, and set forth, resolving never to come back until Proserpina was discovered.

In her haste and trouble of mind, she quite forgot her car and the winged dragons; or, it may be, she thought that she could follow up the search more thoroughly on foot.  At all events, this was the way in which she began her sorrowful journey, holding her torch before her, and looking carefully at every object along the path.  And as it happened, she had not gone far before she found one of the magnificent flowers which grew on the shrub that Proserpina had pulled up.