All the good women of the neighborhood crowded to the palace , and held up their hands , in unutterable amazement , at the beauty and wholesomeness of this darling little prince . Their wonder was the greater , because he was never seen to taste any food ; not even so much as a cup of milk . `` Pray , nurse , '' the queen kept saying , `` how is it that you make the child thrive so ? '' `` I was a mother once , '' Ceres always replied ; `` and having nursed my own child , I know what other children need . '' But Queen Metanira , as was very natural , had a great curiosity to know precisely what the nurse did to her child . One night , therefore , she hid herself in the chamber where Ceres and the little prince were accustomed to sleep . There was a fire in the chimney , and it had now crumbled into great coals and embers , which lay glowing on the hearth , with a blaze flickering up now and then , and flinging a warm and ruddy light upon the walls . Ceres sat before the hearth with the child in her lap , and the firelight making her shadow dance upon the ceiling overhead . She undressed the little prince , and bathed him all over with some fragrant liquid out of a vase . The next thing she did was to rake back the red embers , and make a hollow place among them , just where the backlog had been . At last , while the baby was crowing , and clapping its fat little hands , and laughing in the nurse 's face -LRB- just as you may have seen your little brother or sister do before going into its warm bath -RRB- , Ceres suddenly laid him , all naked as he was , in the hollow among the red-hot embers . She then raked the ashes over him , and turned quietly away . You may imagine , if you can , how Queen Metanira shrieked , thinking nothing less than that her dear child would be burned to a cinder . She burst forth from her hiding-place , and running to the hearth , raked open the fire , and snatched up poor little Prince Demophoon out of his bed of live coals , one of which he was gripping in each of his fists . He immediately set up a grievous cry , as babies are apt to do , when rudely startled out of a sound sleep . To the queen 's astonishment and joy , she could perceive no token of the child 's being injured by the hot fire in which he had lain . She now turned to Mother Ceres , and asked her to explain the mystery . `` Foolish woman , '' answered Ceres , `` did you not promise to intrust this poor infant entirely to me ? You little know the mischief you have done him . Had you left him to my care , he would have grown up like a child of celestial birth , endowed with superhuman strength and intelligence , and would have lived forever .
Do you XXXXX that earthly children are to become immortal without being tempered to it in the fiercest heat of the fire ?
bathed explain flickering imagine laid make making sat snatched undressed