bring back the faintest rose-color to his dear child's face.

While he was in this tumult of despair, he suddenly beheld a stranger
standing near the door. Midas bent down his head, without speaking;
for he recognized the same figure which had appeared to him, the day
before, in the treasure-room, and had bestowed on him this disastrous
faculty of the Golden Touch. The stranger's countenance still wore a
smile, which seemed to shed a yellow lustre all about the room, and
gleamed on little Marygold's image, and on the other objects that had
been transmuted by the touch of Midas.

"Well, friend Midas," said the stranger, "pray how do you succeed with
the Golden Touch?"

Midas shook his head.

"I am very miserable," said he.

"Very miserable, indeed!" exclaimed the stranger. "And how happens
that? Have I not faithfully kept my promise with you? Have you not
everything that your heart desired?"

"Gold is not everything," answered Midas. "And I have lost all that my
heart really cared for."

"Ah! So you have made a discovery, since yesterday?" observed the
stranger. "Let us see, then. Which of these two things do you think is
really worth the most,--the gift of the Golden Touch, or one cup of
clear cold water?"

"O blessed water!" exclaimed Midas. "It will never moisten my parched
throat again!"

"The Golden Touch," continued the stranger, "or a crust of bread?"

"A piece of bread," answered Midas, "is worth all the gold on earth!"

"The Golden Touch," asked the stranger, "or your own little Marygold,
warm, soft, and loving as she was an hour ago?"

"Oh, my child, my dear child!" cried poor Midas, wringing his hands.
"I would not have given that one small dimple in her chin for the
power of changing this whole big earth into a solid lump of gold!"

"You are wiser than you were, King Midas!" said the stranger, looking
seriously at him. "Your own heart, I perceive, has not been entirely
changed from flesh to gold. Were it so, your case would indeed be
desperate. But you appear to be still capable of understanding that
the commonest things, such as lie within everybody's grasp, are more
valuable than the riches which so many mortals sigh and struggle
after. Tell me, now, do you sincerely desire to rid yourself of this
Golden Touch?"

"It is hateful to me!" replied Midas.

A fly settled on his nose, but immediately fell to the floor; for it,
too, had become gold. Midas shuddered.

"Go, then," said the strang