, waving his hand in
token of farewell. "To-morrow, at sunrise, you will find yourself
gifted with the Golden Touch."

The figure of the stranger then became exceedingly bright, and Midas
involuntarily closed his eyes. On opening them again, he beheld only
one yellow sunbeam in the room, and, all around him, the glistening of
the precious metal which he had spent his life in hoarding up.

Whether Midas slept as usual that night, the story does not say.
Asleep or awake, however, his mind was probably in the state of a
child's, to whom a beautiful new plaything has been promised in the
morning. At any rate, day had hardly peeped over the hills, when King
Midas was broad awake, and, stretching his arms out of bed, began to
touch the objects that were within reach. He was anxious to prove
whether the Golden Touch had really come, according to the stranger's
promise. So he laid his finger on a chair by the bedside, and on
various other things, but was grievously disappointed to perceive that
they remained of exactly the same substance as before. Indeed, he felt
very much afraid that he had only dreamed about the lustrous stranger,
or else that the latter had been making game of him. And what a
miserable affair would it be, if, after all his hopes, Midas must
content himself with what little gold he could scrape together by
ordinary means, instead of creating it by a touch!

All this while, it was only the gray of the morning, with but a streak
of brightness along the edge of the sky, where Midas could not see it.
He lay in a very disconsolate mood, regretting the downfall of his
hopes, and kept growing sadder and sadder, until the earliest sunbeam
shone through the window, and gilded the ceiling over his head. It
seemed to Midas that this bright yellow sunbeam was reflected in
rather a singular way on the white covering of the bed. Looking more
closely, what was his astonishment and delight, when he found that
this linen fabric had been transmuted to what seemed a woven texture
of the purest and brightest gold! The Golden Touch had come to him
with the first sunbeam!

Midas started up, in a kind of joyful frenzy, and ran about the room,
grasping at everything that happened to be in his way. He seized one
of the bed-posts, and it became immediately a fluted golden pillar. He
pulled aside a window-curtain, in order to admit a clear spectacle of
the wonders which he was performing; and the tassel grew heavy in his
hand,--a