nd dismal magnificence that it had before been. The
inhabitants all felt this, and King Pluto more than any of them.

"My own little Proserpina," he used to say, "I wish you could like me a
little better. We gloomy and cloudy-natured persons have often as warm
hearts at bottom as those of a more cheerful character. If you would
only stay with me of your own accord, it would make me happier than the
possession of a hundred such palaces as this."

"Ah," said Proserpina, "you should have tried to make me like you before
carrying me off. And the best thing you can do now is to let me go
again. Then I might remember you sometimes, and think that you were as
kind as you knew how to be. Perhaps, too, one day or other, I might come
back, and pay you a visit."

"No, no," answered Pluto, with his gloomy smile, "I will not trust you
for that. You are too fond of living in the broad daylight, and
gathering flowers. What an idle and childish taste that is! Are not
these gems, which I have ordered to be dug for you, and which are richer
than any in my crown--are they not prettier than a violet?"

"Not half so pretty," said Proserpina, snatching the gems from Pluto's
hand, and flinging them to the other end of the hall. "Oh, my sweet
violets, shall I never see you again?"

And then she burst into tears. But young people's tears have very little
saltness or acidity in them, and do not inflame the eyes so much as
those of grown persons; so that it is not to be wondered at if, a few
moments afterward, Proserpina was sporting through the hall almost as
merrily as she and the four sea nymphs had sported along the edge of the
surf wave. King Pluto gazed after her, and wished that he, too, was a
child. And little Proserpina, when she turned about and beheld this
great king standing in his splendid hall, and looking so grand, and so
melancholy, and so lonesome, was smitten with a kind of pity. She ran
back to him, and, for the first time in all her life, put her small soft
hand in his.

"I love you a little," whispered she, looking up in his face.

"Do you, indeed, my dear child?" cried Pluto, bending his dark face down
to kiss her; but Proserpina shrank away from the kiss, for though his
features were noble, they were very dusky and grim. "Well, I have not
deserved it of you, after keeping you a prisoner for so many months, and
starving you, besides. Are you not terribly hungry? Is there nothing
which I can get you to eat?"

In aski