“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?”

[Illustration:  Marygold was A golden statue!]

“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.

You will easily believe that Midas lost no time in snatching up a great earthen pitcher (but alas me! it was no longer earthen after he touched it) and hastening to the riverside.  As he scampered along and forced his way through the shrubbery, it was positively marvelous to see how the foliage turned yellow behind him, as if the autumn had been there and nowhere else.

On reaching the river’s brink he plunged headlong in, without waiting so much as to pull off his shoes.

“Poof! poof! poof!” snorted King Midas, as his head emerged out of the water.  “Well, this is really a refreshing bath, and I think it must have washed away the Golden Touch.  And now for filling my pitcher.”

As he dipped the pitcher into the water it gladdened his very heart to see it change from gold into the same good, honest earthen vessel which it had been before he touched it.  He was conscious also of a change within himself.  A cold, hard, and heavy weight seemed to have gone out of his bosom.  No doubt his heart had been gradually losing its human substance and transmuting itself into insensible metal, but had now softened back again into flesh.  Perceiving a violet that grew on the bank of the river, Midas touched it with his finger, and was overjoyed to find that the delicate flower retained its purple hue, instead of undergoing a yellow blight.  The curse of the Golden Touch had therefore really been removed from him.