sands with the sea-children. And King Pluto, sad and lonely, watched
her and wished that he too was a child, and when Proserpina turned and
saw the great King standing alone in his splendid hall, so grand and
so lonely, with no one to love him, she felt sorry for him. She ran
back and for the first time in all those six months she put her small
hand in his. "I love you a little," she whispered, looking up into his
face.

"Do you really, dear child?" cried Pluto, bending down his dark face
to kiss her. But Proserpina was a little afraid, he was so dark and
severe-looking, and she shrank back.

"Well," said Pluto, "it is just what I deserve after keeping you
a prisoner all these months, and starving you besides. Are you not
dreadfully hungry, is there nothing I can get you to eat?"

In asking this Pluto was very cunning, as you will remember that if
Proserpina once tasted any food in his kingdom, she would never again
be able to go home.

"No, indeed," said Proserpina. "Your poor fat little cook is always
making me all kinds of good things which I do not want. The one thing
I should like to eat would be a slice of bread baked by my own mother,
and a pear out of her garden."

When Pluto heard this he began to see that he had made a mistake in
his way of trying to tempt Proserpina to eat. He wondered why he had
never thought of this before, and he at once sent a servant with a
large basket to get some of the finest and juiciest pears in the whole
world.