inds, before they suspected it themselves. They sometimes wished,
it is true, that he had not been quite so quick-witted, and also that he
would fling away his staff, which looked so mysteriously mischievous, with
the snakes always writhing about it. But then, again, Quicksilver showed
himself so very good-humored, that they would have been rejoiced to keep
him in their cottage, staff, snakes, and all, every day, and the whole day
long.

"Ah me! Well-a-day!" exclaimed Philemon, when they had walked a little way
from their door. "If our neighbors only knew what a blessed thing it is to
show hospitality to strangers, they would tie up all their dogs, and never
allow their children to fling another stone."

"It is a sin and shame for them to behave so,--that it is!" cried good old
Baucis vehemently. "And I mean to go this very day, and tell some of them
what naughty people they are!"

"I fear," remarked Quicksilver; slyly smiling, "that you will find none of
them at home."

The elder traveler's brow, just then, assumed such a grave, stern, and
awful grandeur, yet serene withal, that neither Baucis nor Philemon dared
to speak a word. They gazed reverently into his face, as if they had been
gazing at the sky.

"When men do not feel towards the humblest stranger as if he were a
brother," said the traveler, in tones so deep that they sounded like those
of an organ, "they are unworthy to exist on earth, which was created as
the abode of a great human brotherhood!"

"And, by the by, my dear old people," cried Quicksilver, with the
liveliest look of fun and mischief in his eyes, "where is this same
village that you talk about? On which side of us does it lie? Methinks I
do not see it hereabouts."

Philemon and his wife turned towards the valley, where, at sunset, only
the day before, they had seen the meadows, the houses, the gardens, the
clumps of trees, the wide, green-margined street, with children playing in
it, and all the tokens of business, enjoyment, and prosperity. But what
was their astonishment! There was no longer any appearance of a village!
Even the fertile vale, in the hollow of which it lay, had ceased to have
existence. In its stead, they beheld the broad, blue surface of a lake,
which filled the great basin of the valley from brim to brim, and
reflected the surrounding hills in its bosom with as tranquil an image as
if it had been there ever since the creation of the world. For an instant,
the lake remai