`` Where is my child ? Tell me , you naughty sea nymphs , have you enticed her under the sea ? '' `` O , no , good Mother Ceres , '' said the innocent sea nymphs , tossing back their green ringlets , and looking her in the face . `` We never should dream of such a thing . Proserpina has been at play with us , it is true ; but she left us a long while ago , meaning only to run a little way upon the dry land , and gather some flowers for a wreath . This was early in the day , and we have seen nothing of her since . '' Ceres scarcely waited to hear what the nymphs had to say , before she hurried off to make inquiries all through the neighborhood . But nobody told her anything that would enable the poor mother to guess what had become of Proserpina . A fisherman , it is true , had noticed her little footprints in the sand , as he went homeward along the beach with a basket of fish ; a rustic had seen the child stooping to gather flowers ; several persons had heard either the rattling of chariot wheels , or the rumbling of distant thunder ; and one old woman , while plucking vervain and catnip , had heard a scream , but supposed it to be some childish nonsense , and therefore did not take the trouble to look up . The stupid people ! It took them such a tedious while to tell the nothing that they knew , that it was dark night before Mother Ceres found out that she must seek her daughter elsewhere . So she lighted a torch , and set forth , resolving never to come back until Proserpina was discovered . In her haste and trouble of mind , she quite forgot her car and the winged dragons ; or , it may be , she thought that she could follow up the search more thoroughly on foot . At all events , this was the way in which she began her sorrowful journey , holding her torch before her , and looking carefully at every object along the path . And as it happened , she had not gone far before she found one of the magnificent flowers which grew on the shrub that Proserpina had pulled up . `` Ha ! '' thought Mother Ceres , examining it by torchlight . `` Here is mischief in this flower ! The earth did not produce it by any help of mine , nor of its own accord . It is the work of enchantment , and is therefore poisonous ; and perhaps it has poisoned my poor child . ''
But she put the poisonous flower in her bosom , not knowing whether she might ever find any other memorial XXXXX Proserpina .
So along at before in of since under while with