But now, having nothing else to busy herself
about, she became just as wretched as before.
At length, in her despair, she came to the dread-
ful resolution that not a stalk of grain, nor a
blade of grass, not a potato, nor a turnip, nor
any other vegetable that was good for man or
beast to eat, should be suffered to grow until her
daughter were restored. She even forbade the
flowers to bloom, lest somebody's heart should
be cheered by their beauty.

Now, as not so much as a head of asparagus
ever presumed to poke itself out of the ground,
without the especial permission of Ceres, you
may conceive what a 'terrible calamity had
here fallen upon the earth. The husbandmen
ploughed and planted as usual; but there lay
the rich black furrows, all as barren as a desert
of sand. The pastures looked as brown in the
sweet month of June as ever they did in chill
November. The rich man's broad acres and
the cottager's small garden patch were equally
blighted. Every little girl's flower bed showed
nothing but dry stalks. The old people shook
their white heads, and said that the earth had
grown aged like themselves, and was no iongei

[[256]]

p255 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p256w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p257

v?