owing 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
aga