“I am old Baucis!” murmured the linden-tree.

But, as the breeze grew stronger, the trees both spoke at once,—­“Philemon!  Baucis!  Baucis!  Philemon!”—­as if one were both and both were one, and talking together in the depths of their mutual heart.  It was plain enough to perceive that the good old couple had renewed their age, and were now to spend a quiet and delightful hundred years or so, Philemon as an oak, and Baucis as a linden-tree.  And oh, what a hospitable shade did they fling around them!  Whenever a wayfarer paused beneath it, he heard a pleasant whisper of the leaves above his head, and wondered how the sound should so much resemble words like these:—­

“Welcome, welcome, dear traveler, welcome!”

And some kind soul, that knew what would have pleased old Baucis and old Philemon best, built a circular seat around both their trunks, where, for a great while afterwards, the weary, and the hungry, and the thirsty used to repose themselves, and quaff milk abundantly from the miraculous pitcher.

And I wish, for all our sakes, that we had the pitcher here now!

THE GOLDEN TOUCH

By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Once upon a time, there lived a very rich man, and a king besides, whose name was Midas; and he had a little daughter, whom nobody but myself ever heard of, and whose name I either never knew or have entirely forgotten.  So, because I love odd names for little girls, I choose to call her Marygold.

This King Midas was fonder of gold than of anything else in the world.  He valued his royal crown chiefly because it was composed of that precious metal.  If he loved anything better, or half so well, it was the one little maiden who played so merrily around her father’s footstool.  But the more Midas loved his daughter, the more did he desire and seek for wealth.  He thought, foolish man! that the best thing he could possibly do for this dear child would be to bequeath her the immensest pile of yellow, glistening coin, that had ever been heaped together since the world was made.  Thus, he gave all his thoughts and all his time to this one purpose.  If ever he happened to gaze for an instant at the gold-tinted clouds of sunset, he wished that they were real gold, and that they could be squeezed safely into his strong box.  When little Marygold ran to meet him with a bunch of buttercups and dandelions, he used to say, “Poh, poh, child!  If these flowers were as golden as they look, they would be worth the plucking!”

And yet, in his earlier days, before he was so entirely possessed of this insane desire for riches, King Midas had shown a great taste for flowers.  He had planted a garden, in which grew the biggest and beautifulest and sweetest roses that any mortal ever saw or smelt.  These roses were still growing in the garden, as large, as lovely, and as fragrant as when Midas used to pass whole hours in gazing at them and inhaling their perfume.  But now, if he looked at them at all, it was only to calculate how much the garden would be worth if each of the innumerable rose-petals were a thin plate of gold.  And though he once was fond of music (in spite of an idle story about his ears, which were said to resemble those of an ass), the only music for poor Midas, now, was the chink of one coin against another.