"I fear some poor traveller is seeking
hospitality among our neighbours yonder, and, instead of giving him food
and lodging, they have set their dogs at him, as their custom is!"

"Well-a-day!" answered old Baucis, "I do wish our neighbours felt a
little more kindness for their fellow creatures. And only think of
bringing up their children in this naughty way, and patting them on the
head when they fling stones at strangers!"

"Those children will never come to any good," said Philemon, shaking his
white head. "To tell you the truth, wife, I should not wonder if some
terrible thing were to happen to all the people in the village, unless
they mend their manners. But, as for you and me, so long as Providence
affords us a crust of bread, let us be ready to give half to any poor,
homeless stranger that may come along and need it."

"That's right, husband!" said Baucis. "So we will!"

These old folks, you must know, were quite poor, and had to work pretty
hard for a living. Old Philemon toiled diligently in his garden, while
Baucis was always busy with her distaff, or making a little butter and
cheese with their cow's milk, or doing one thing and another about the
cottage. Their food was seldom anything but bread, milk, and vegetables,
with sometimes a portion of honey from their beehive, and now and then a
bunch of grapes that had ripened against the cottage wall. But they were
two of the kindest old people in the world, and would cheerfully have
gone without their dinners, any day, rather than refuse a slice of their
brown loaf, a cup of new milk, and a spoonful of honey, to the weary
traveller who might pause before their door. They felt as if such guests
had a sort of holiness, and that they ought, therefore, to treat them
better and more bountifully than their own selves.

Their cottage stood on a rising ground, at some short distance from a
village, which lay in a hollow valley that was about half a mile in
breadth. This valley, in past ages, when the world was new, had probably
been the bed of a lake. There, fishes had glided to and fro in the
depths, and water weeds had grown along the margin, and trees and hills
had seen their reflected images in the broad and peaceful mirror. But,
as the waters subsided, men had cultivated the soil, and built houses on
it, so that it was now a fertile spot, and bore no traces of the ancient
lake, except a very small brook, which meandered through the midst of
the village, and