“Ha!” thought Mother Ceres, examining it by torchlight.  “Here is mischief in this flower!  The earth did not produce it by any help of mine, nor of its own accord.  It is the work of enchantment, and is therefore poisonous; and perhaps it has poisoned my poor child.”

But she put the poisonous flower in her bosom, not knowing whether she might ever find any other memorial of Proserpina.

All night long, at the door of every cottage and farmhouse, Ceres knocked, and called up the weary laborers to inquire if they had seen her child; and they stood, gaping and half asleep, at the threshold, and answered her pityingly, and besought her to come in and rest.  At the portal of every palace, too, she made so loud a summons that the menials hurried to throw open the gate, thinking that it must be some great king or queen, who would demand a banquet for supper and a stately chamber to repose in.  And when they saw only a sad and anxious woman, with a torch in her hand and a wreath of withered poppies on her head, they spoke rudely, and sometimes threatened to set the dogs upon her.  But nobody had seen Proserpina, nor could give Mother Ceres the least hint which way to seek her.  Thus passed the night; and still she continued her search without sitting down to rest, or stopping to take food, or even remembering to put down the torch; although first the rosy dawn, and then the glad light of the morning sun, made its red flame look thin and pale.  But I wonder what sort of stuff this torch was made of; for it burned dimly through the day, and at night was as bright as ever, and never was extinguished by the rain or wind, in all the weary days and nights while Ceres was seeking for Proserpina.

It was not merely of human beings that she asked tidings of her daughter.  In the woods and by the streams, she met creatures of another nature, who used, in those old times, to haunt the pleasant and solitary places, and were very sociable with persons who understood their language and customs, as Mother Ceres did.  Sometimes, for instance, she tapped with her finger against the knotted trunk of a majestic oak; and immediately its rude bark would cleave asunder, and forth would step a beautiful maiden, who was the hamadryad of the oak, dwelling inside of it, and sharing its long life, and rejoicing when its green leaves sported with the breeze.  But not one of these leafy damsels had seen Proserpina.  Then, going a little farther, Ceres would, perhaps, come to a fountain, gushing out of a pebbly hollow in the earth, and would dabble with her hand in the water.  Behold, up through its sandy and pebbly bed, along with the fountain’s gush, a young woman with dripping hair would arise, and stand gazing at Mother Ceres, half out of the water, and undulating up and down with its ever-restless motion.  But when the mother asked whether her poor lost child had stopped to drink out of the fountain, the naiad, with weeping eyes (for these water-nymphs had tears to spare for everybody’s grief), would answer, “No!” in a murmuring voice, which was just like the murmur of the stream.