“I think it a very dismal one,” said Proserpina.

“It suits my taste, however,” answered Pluto, who was apt to be sullen when anybody disagreed with him.  “At all events, its water has one very excellent quality; for a single draught of it makes people forget every care and sorrow that has hitherto tormented them.  Only sip a little of it, my dear Proserpina, and you will instantly cease to grieve for your mother, and will have nothing in your memory that can prevent your being perfectly happy in my palace.  I will send for some, in a golden goblet, the moment we arrive.”

“Oh no, no, no!” cried Proserpina, weeping afresh.  “I had a thousand times rather be miserable with remembering my mother, than be happy in forgetting her.  That dear, dear mother!  I never, never will forget her.”

“We shall see,” said King Pluto.  “You do not know what fine times we will have in my palace.  Here we are just at the portal.  These pillars are solid gold, I assure you.”

He alighted from the chariot, and taking Proserpina in his arms, carried her up a lofty flight of steps into the great hall of the palace.  It was splendidly illuminated by means of large precious stones of various hues, which seemed to burn like so many lamps and glowed with a hundred-fold radiance all through the vast apartment.  And yet there was a kind of gloom in the midst of this enchanted light; nor was there a single object in the hall that was really agreeable to behold, except the little Proserpina herself, a lovely child, with one earthly flower which she had 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.”

“I should be sorry for that,” replied King Pluto, patting her cheek; for he really wished to be kind, if he had only known how.  “You are a spoiled child, I perceive, my little Proserpina; but when you see the nice things which my cook will make for you, your appetite will quickly come again.”