On went the chariot, and King Pluto seemed greatly pleased to find himself once more in his own kingdom.
Pluto stopped the chariot, and bade Proserpina look at the stream which was gliding so lazily beneath it.
"This is the River Lethe," observed King Pluto. "Is it not a very pleasant stream?"
"It suits my taste, however," answered Pluto, who was apt to be sullen when anybody disagreed with him.
"We shall see," said King Pluto. "You do not know what fine times we will have in my palace.
It is my opinion that even King Pluto had never been happy in his palace, and that this was the true reason why he had stolen away Proserpina, in order that he might have something to love, instead of cheating his heart any longer with this tiresome magnificence.
Pluto now summoned his domestics, and bade them lose no time in preparing a most sumptuous banquet, and above all things, not to fail of setting a golden beaker of the water of Lethe by Proserpina's plate.
"I should be sorry for that," replied King Pluto, patting her cheek; for he really wished to be kind, if he had only known how.
Now, if King Pluto had been cunning enough to offer Proserpina some fruit, or bread and milk (which was the simple fare to which the child had always been accustomed), it is very probable that she would soon have been tempted to eat it.
But my story must now clamber out of King Pluto's dominions, and see what Mother Ceres had been about, since she was bereft of her daughter.
"Why," said Phoebus--and as he spoke he kept touching his lyre so as to make a thread of music run in and out among his words--"as the little damsel was gathering flowers (and she has really a very exquisite taste for flowers), she was suddenly snatched up by King Pluto, and carried off to his dominions.
Will you go with me you go with me, Phoebus, to demand my daughter of this wicked Pluto?"
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."
Ceres answered, that Hecate was welcome to go back thither herself, but that, for her part, she would wander about the earth in quest of the entrance to King Pluto's dominions.
"For if they do," said she, "it may happen to you, as it has to me, that the iron-hearted King Pluto will take a liking to your darlings, and snatch them up in his chariot, and carry them away."
