and as if she scattered dewy blossoms on hex
right hand and on her left. After Proserpina
came, the palace was no longer the same abode
of stately artifice and 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 hap-
pier than the possession of a hundred such pal-
aces as this."

"Ah," said Proserpina, "you should have tried
to make me like you before carrying me off.
And the best thing you can now do is, to let me
go again. Then I might remember you some-
times, 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

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v?