“For if they do,” said she, “it may happen to you, as it has to me, that the iron-hearted King Pluto will take a liking to your darlings, and snatch them up in his chariot, and carry them away.”

One day, during her pilgrimage in quest of the entrance to Pluto’s kingdom, she came to the palace of King Celeus, who reigned at Eleusis.  Ascending a lofty flight of steps, she entered the portal, and found the royal household in very great alarm about the queen’s baby.  The infant, it seems, was sickly (being troubled with its teeth, I suppose), and would take no food, and was all the time moaning with pain.  The queen—­her name was Metanira—­was desirous of finding a nurse; and when she beheld a woman of matronly aspect coming up the palace steps, she thought, in her own mind, that here was the very person whom she needed.  So Queen Metanira ran to the door, with the poor wailing baby in her arms, and besought Ceres to take charge of it, or, at least, to tell her what would do it good.

“Will you trust the child entirely to me?” asked Ceres.

“Yes, and gladly, too,” answered the queen, “if you will devote all your time to him.  For I can see that you have been a mother.”

“You are right,” said Ceres.  “I once had a child of my own.  Well; I will be the nurse of this poor, sickly boy.  But beware, I warn you, that you do not interfere with any kind of treatment which I may judge proper for him.  If you do so, the poor infant must suffer for his mother’s folly.”

Then she kissed the child, and it seemed to do him good; for he smiled and nestled closely into her bosom.

So Mother Ceres set her torch in a corner (where it kept burning all the while), and took up her abode in the palace of King Celeus, as nurse to the little Prince Demophooen.  She treated him as if he were her own child, and allowed neither the king nor the queen to say whether he should be bathed in warm or cold water, or what he should eat, or how often he should take the air, or when he should be put to bed.  You would hardly believe me, if I were to tell how quickly the baby prince got rid of his ailments, and grew fat, and rosy, and strong, and how he had two rows of ivory teeth in less time than any other little fellow, before or since.  Instead of the palest, and wretchedest, and puniest imp in the world (as his own mother confessed him to be when Ceres first took him in charge), he was now a strapping baby, crowing, laughing, kicking up his heels, and rolling from one end of the room to the other.  All the good women of the neighbourhood crowded to the palace, and held up their hands, in unutterable amazement, at the beauty and wholesomeness of this darling little prince.  Their wonder was the greater, because he was never seen to taste any food; not even so much as a cup of milk.

“Pray, nurse,” the queen kept saying, “how is it that you make the child thrive so?”

“I was a mother once,” Ceres always replied; “and having nursed my own child, I know what other children need.”