ut to the maidens, because they looked so young
and fair and simple and spoke out of such kind hearts. She said to
them: "Where can I go, dear children? My people are far away, and there
are none in all the world who would care to be near me."

Said one of the maidens: "There are princes in the land who would
welcome you in their houses if you would consent to nurse one of their
young children. But why do I speak of other princes beside Celeus, our
father? In his house you would indeed have a welcome. But lately a baby
has been born to our mother, Metaneira, and she would greatly rejoice
to have one as wise as you mind little Demophoon."

All the time that she watched them and listened to their voices Demeter
felt that the grace and youth of the maidens made them like Persephone.
She thought that it would ease her heart to be in the house where these
maidens were, and she was not loath to have them go and ask of their
mother to have her come to nurse the infant child.

Swiftly they ran back to their home, their hair streaming behind them
like crocus flowers; kind and lovely girls whose names are well
remembered--Callidice and Cleisidice, Demo and Callithoe. They went to
their mother and they told her of the stranger-woman whose name was
Doso. She would make a wise and a kind nurse for little Demophoon, they
said. Their mother, Metaneira, rose up from the couch she was sitting
on to welcome the stranger. But when she saw her at the doorway, awe
came over her, so majestic she seemed.

Metaneira would have her seat herself on the couch but the goddess took
the lowliest stool, saying in greeting: "May the gods give you all
good, lady."

"Sorrow has set you wandering from your good home," said Metaneira to
the goddess, "but now that you have come to this place you shall have
all that this house can bestow if you will rear up to youth the infant
Demophoon, child of many hopes and prayers."

The child was put into the arms of Demeter; she clasped him to her
breast, and little Demophoon looked up into her face and smiled. Then
Demeter's heart went out to the child and to all who were in the
household.

He grew in strength and beauty in her charge. And little Demophoon was
not nourished as other children are nourished, but even as the gods in
their childhood were nourished. Demeter fed him on ambrosia, breathing
on him with her divine breath the while. And at night she laid him on
the hearth, amongst the embers, with the