r what had become of Proserpina, any
better than the rest of these wild people.

And thus Mother Ceres went wandering about for nine long days and nights,
finding no trace of Proserpina, unless it were now and then a withered
flower; and these, she picked up and put in her bosom, because she fancied
that they might have fallen from her poor child's hand. All day she
traveled onward through the hot sun; and at night, again, the flame of the
torch would redden and gleam along the pathway, and 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 everywhere 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 could not half light up
the gloomy cavern with all its melancholy 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 word to say to other people, unless they were as
melancholy and wretched as she herself delighted to be.

"I am wretched enough now," thought poor Ceres, "to talk with this
melancholy Hecate, were she ten times sadder than ever she was yet."

So she stepped into the cave, and sat down, on the withered leaves by the
dog-headed woman's side. In all the world, since her daughter's loss, she
had found no other companion.

"O Hecate." said she, "if ever you lose a daughter, you will know what
sorrow is. Tell me, for pity's sake, have you seen my poor child
Proserpina pass by the mouth of your cavern?"

"No." answered Hecate, in a cracked voice, and sighing betwixt every word
or two.--"no. Mother Ceres, I have seen nothing of your daughter. But my
ears, you must know, are made in such a way that all cries of distress and
affright, all o