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 nigh