"Do you, indeed, my dear child?" cried Pluto,
bending his dark face down to kiss her; but
Proserpina shrank away from the kiss, for
though his features were noble, they were very
dusky and grim. "Well, I have not deserved it
of you, after keeping you a prisoner for so many
months, and starving you, besides. Are you not
terribly hungry? Is there nothing which I can
get you to eat?"

In asking this question, the king of the mines
had a very cunning purpose; for, you will recol-
lect, if Proserpina tasted a morsel of food in his
dominions, she would never afterwards be at
liberty to quit them.

"No, indeed," said Proserpina. "Your head
cook is always baking, and stewing, and roast-
ing, and rolling out paste, and contriving one
dish or another, which he imagines may be to
my liking. But he might just as well save him-
self the trouble, poor, fat little man that he is. I.
have no appetite for any thing in the world, un-
less it were a slice of bread, of my mother's own
baking, or a little fruit out of her garden."

When Pluto heard this, he began to see that
he had mistaken the best method of tempting

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p261 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p262w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p263

v?