she continued her search by its light) without
ever sitting down to rest.

On the tenth day, she chanced to espy the
mouth of a cavern, within which (though it was
bright noon every where else) there would have
been only a dusky twilight; but it so happened
that a torch was burning there. It flickered,
and struggled with the duskiness, but oould not
half light up the gloomy cavern with all its mel-
ancholy glimmer. Ceres was resolved to leave
no spot without a search; so she peeped into the
entrance of the cave, and lighted it up a little
more, by holding her own torch before her.
In so doing, she caught a glimpse of what
seemed to be a woman, sitting on the brown
leaves of the last autumn, a great heap of which
had been swept into the cave by the wind.
This woman (if woman it were) was by no
means so beautiful as many of her sex; for her
head, they tell me, was shaped very much like a
dog's, and, by way of ornament, she wore a
wreath of snakes around it. But Mother Ceres,
the moment she saw her, knew that this was an
odd kind of a person, who put all her enjoyment
in being miserable, and never would have a

[[240]]

p239 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p240w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p241

v?