er. 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 Demophoeon, 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.

While she dwelt in the king's palace, Mother Ceres had been so continually
occupied with taking care of the young prince, that her heart was a little
lightened of its grief for Proserpina. But now, having nothing else to
busy herself about, she became just as wretched as before. At length, in
her despair, she came to the dreadful resolution that not a stalk of
grain, nor a blade of grass, not a potato, nor a turnip, nor any other
vegetable that was good for man or beast to eat, should be suffered to
grow until her daughter were restored. She even forbade the flowers to
bloom, lest somebody's heart should be cheered by their beauty.

Now, as not so much as a head of asparagus ever presumed to poke itself
out of the ground, without the especial permission of Ceres, you may
conceive what a terrible calamity had here fallen upon the earth. The
husbandmen ploughed and planted as usual; but there lay the rich black
furrows, all as barren as a desert of sand. The pastures looked as brown
in the sweet month of June as ever they did in chill November. The rich
man's broad acres and the cottager's small garden-patch were equally
blighted. Every little girl's flower-bed showed nothing but dry stalks.
The old people shook their white heads, and said that the earth had grown
aged like themselves, and was no longer capable of wearing the warm smile
of summer on its face. It was really piteous to see the poor starving
cattle and sheep, how they followed behind Ceres, lowing and bleating, as
if their instinct taught them to expect help from her; and everybody that
was acquainted with her power besought her to have mercy on the human
race, and, at all events, to let the grass grow. But Mother Ceres, though
naturally of an affectionate disposition, was no