The loveliest of them all, our Mistress dear?

_Eun._ I know not, even now I left her here,
Guarded by you, oh Ino, while I climbed
Up yonder steep for this most worthless rose:--
Know you not where she is? Did you forget
Ceres' behest, and thus forsake her child?

_Ino._ Chide not, unkind Eunoe, I but went
Down that dark glade, where underneath the shade [12]
[Footnote: MS. pages numbered 11, 12, &c., to the end
instead of 12, 13, &c.]
Of those high trees the sweetest violets grow,--
I went at her command. Alas! Alas!
My heart sinks down; I dread she may be lost;--
Eunoe, climb the hill, search that ravine,
Whose close, dark sides may hide her from our view:--
Oh, dearest, haste! Is that her snow-white robe?

_Eun._ No;--'tis a faun
[Footnote: MS. _fawn._]
beside its sleeping Mother,
Browsing the grass;--what will thy Mother say,
Dear Proserpine, what will bright Ceres feel,
If her return be welcomed not by thee?

_Ino._ These are wild thoughts,--& we are wrong to fear
That any ill can touch the child of heaven;
She is not lost,--trust me, she has but strayed
Up some steep mountain path, or in yon dell,