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 recognised 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.  “I 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 stranger, “and plunge into the river that glides past the bottom of your garden.  Take likewise a vase of the same water, and sprinkle it over any object that you may desire to change back again from gold into its former substance.  If you do this in earnestness and sincerity, it may possibly repair the mischief which your avarice has occasioned.”

King Midas bowed low; and when he lifted his head, the lustrous stranger had vanished.