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 and, even in spite of the lack of sunshine, she will lead a very enviable life.'

'Hush! Say not such a word!' answered Ceres, indignantly. 'What is there to gratify her heart? What are all the splendours you speak of, without affection? I must have her back again. Will you go with me, Phœbus, to demand my daughter of this wicked Pluto?'

'Pray excuse me,' replied Phœbus, with an elegant obeisance. 'I certainly wish you success, and regret that my own affairs are so immediately pressing that I cannot have the pleasure of attending you. Besides, I am not upon the best of terms with King Pluto. To tell you the truth, his three-headed mastiff would never let me pass the gateway; for I should be compelled to take a sheaf of sunbeams along with me, and those, you know, are forbidden things in Pluto's kingdom.'

'Ah, Phœbus,' said Ceres, with a bitter meaning in her words, 'you have a harp instead of a heart. Farewell.'

'Will you not stay a moment,' asked Phœbus, 'and hear me turn the pretty and touching story of Proserpina into extemporary verses?'

But Ceres shook her head, and hastened away, along with Hecate. Phœbus (who, as I have told you, was an exquisite poet) forthwith began to make an ode about the poor mother's grief; and, if we were to judge of his sensibility by this beautiful production, he must have been endowed with a very tender heart. But when a poet gets into the habit of using his heart-strings to make chords for 178