But Queen Metanira, as was very natural, had a great curiosity to know precisely what the nurse did to her child.  One night, therefore, she hid herself in the chamber where Ceres and the little prince were accustomed to sleep.  There was a fire in the chimney, and it had now crumbled into great coals and embers, which lay glowing on the hearth, with a blaze flickering up now and then, and flinging a warm and ruddy light upon the walls.  Ceres sat before the hearth with the child in her lap, and the fire-light making her shadow dance upon the ceiling overhead.  She undressed the little prince, and bathed him all over with some fragrant liquid out of a vase.  The next thing she did was to rake back the red embers, and make a hollow place among them, just where the backlog had been.  At last, while the baby was crowing, and clapping its fat little hands, and laughing in the nurse’s face (just as you may have seen your little brother or sister do before going into its warm bath), Ceres suddenly laid him, all naked as he was, in the hollow among the red-hot embers.  She then raked the ashes over him, and turned quietly away.

You may imagine, if you can, how Queen Metanira shrieked, thinking nothing less than that her dear child would be burned to a cinder.  She burst forth from her hiding place, and running to the hearth, raked open the fire, and snatched up poor little Prince Demophooen out of his bed of live coals, one of which he was griping in each of his fists.  He immediately set up a grievous cry, as babies are apt to do when rudely startled out of a sound sleep.  To the queen’s astonishment and joy, she could perceive no token of the child’s being injured by the hot fire in which he had lain.  She now turned to Mother Ceres, and asked her to explain the mystery.

“Foolish woman,” answered Ceres, “did you not promise to intrust this poor infant entirely to me?  You little know the mischief you have done him.  Had you left him to my care, he would have grown up like a child of celestial birth, endowed with superhuman strength and intelligence, and would have lived forever.  Do you imagine that earthly children are to become immortal without being tempered to it in the fiercest heat of the fire?  But you have ruined your own son.  For though he will be a strong man and a hero in his day, yet, on account of your folly, he will grow old, and finally die, like the sons of other women.  The weak tenderness of his mother has cost the poor boy an immortality.  Farewell.”

Saying these words, she kissed the little Prince Demophooen, and sighed to think what he had lost, and took her departure without heeding Queen Metanira, who entreated her to remain, and cover up the child among the hot embers as often as she pleased.  Poor baby!  He never slept so warmly again.