"Hush! Say not such a word!" answered
Ceres, indignantly. "What is there to gratify
her heart? What are all the splendors you
speak of, without affection? I must have her
back again. Will you go with me, Phoebus, to
demand my daughter of this wicked Pluto?"

"Pray excuse me," replied Phoebus, with an
elegant obeisance. "I certainly wish you suc-
cess, and regret that my own affairs are so im-
mediately pressing that I cannot have the pleas-
ure of attending you. Besides, I am not upon
the best of terms with King Pluto. To tell you
the truth, his three-headed mastiff would never
let me pass the gateway; for I should be com-
pelled to take a sheaf of sunbeams along with
me, and those, you know, are forbidden things
in Pluto's kingdom."

"Ah, Phoebus," said Ceres, with bitter mean-
ing in her words, "you have a harp instead of a
heart. Farewell."

"Will not you stay a moment," asked Phce-
bns, "and hear me turn the pretty and touching
story of Proserpina into extemporary verses?"

But Ceres shook her head, and hastened away,
along with Hecate. Phoebus (who s as I have

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p246 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p247w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p248

v?