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 traveler 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 supplied the inhabitants with
water. The valley had been dry land so long, that oaks had sprung up,
and grown great and high, and perished with old age, and been
succeeded by others, as tall and stately as the first. Never was there
a prettier or more fruitful valley. The very sight of the plenty
around them should have made the inhabitants kind and gentle, and
ready to show their gratitude to Providence by doing good to their
fellow-creatures.

But, we are sorry to say, the people of this lovely village were not
worthy to dwell in a spot on which Heaven had smiled so beneficently.
They were a very selfish and hard-hearted people, and had no pity for
the poor, nor sympathy with the homeless. They would only have
laughed, had anybody told the