rumbling of distant thunder: and one old woman had heard a scream, but
supposed it was only merriment, and had not even looked up.

None of the neighbors knew where Proserpina was, and Mother Ceres
decided she must seek her daughter further from home.

By this time it was night, so she lit a torch and set off, telling the
neighbors she would never come back till Proserpina was found. In
her hurry she quite forgot her chariot with the dragons; may be she
thought she could search better on foot.

So she started on her sad journey, holding her torch in front of her,
and looking carefully along every road and round every corner.

She had not gone very far before she found one of the wonderful
flowers which Proserpina had pulled from the poison bush.

"Ha!" said Mother Ceres, examining it carefully, "there is mischief in
this flower: it did not grow in the earth by any help of mine; it is
the work of magic, and perhaps it has poisoned my poor child." And she
hid it in her bosom.

All night long Ceres sought for her daughter. She knocked at the doors
of farm-houses where the people were all asleep, and they came to see
who was there, rubbing their eyes and yawning. They were very sorry
for the poor mother when they heard her tale--but they knew nothing
about Proserpina.

At every palace door, too, she knocked, so loudly that the servants
ran quickly, expecting to find a great queen, and when they saw only
a sad lonely woman with a burning torch in her hand, and a wreath of
withered poppies on her head, they were angry and drove her rudely
away.

But nobody had seen Proserpina, and Mother Ceres wandered about till
the night was passed, without sitting down to rest, and without taking
any food. She did not even remember to put out her torch, and it
looked very pale and small in the bright morning sunshine.

It must have been a magic torch, for it burned dimly all day, and then
when night came it shone with a beautiful red light, and neither the
wind nor the rain put it out through all these weary days while Ceres
sought for Proserpina.

It was not only men and women that Mother Ceres questioned about her
daughter. In the woods and by the streams she met other creatures
whose way of talking she could understand, and who knew many things
that we have never learned.

Sometimes she tapped with her finger against an oak tree, and at once
its rough bark would open and a beautiful maiden would appear: she was
the spiri