nd leave the world at the same
instant, when we die! For we have always loved one another!"

"Be it so!" replied the stranger, with majestic kindness. "Now, look
towards your cottage!"

They did so. But what was their surprise on beholding a tall edifice of
white marble, with a wide-open portal, occupying the spot where their
humble residence had so lately stood!

"There is your home," said the stranger, beneficently smiling on them
both. "Exercise your hospitality in yonder palace as freely as in the poor
hovel to which you welcomed us last evening."

The old folks fell on their knees to thank him; but, behold! neither he
nor Quicksilver was there.

So Philemon and Baucis took up their residence in the marble palace, and
spent their time, with vast satisfaction to themselves, in making
everybody jolly and comfortable who happened to pass that way. The
milk-pitcher, I must not forget to say, retained its marvelous quality of
being never empty, when it was desirable to have it full. Whenever an
honest, good-humored, and free-hearted guest took a draught from this
pitcher, he invariably found it the sweetest and most invigorating fluid
that ever ran down his throat. But, if a cross and disagreeable curmudgeon
happened to sip, he was pretty certain to twist his visage into a hard
knot, and pronounce it a pitcher of sour milk!

Thus the old couple lived in their palace a great, great while, and grew
older and older, and very old indeed. At length, however, there came a
summer morning when Philemon and Baucis failed to make their appearance,
as on other mornings, with one hospitable smile overspreading both their
pleasant faces, to invite the guests of over-night to breakfast. The
guests searched everywhere, from top to bottom of the spacious palace, and
all to no purpose. But, after a great deal of perplexity, they espied, in
front of the portal, two venerable trees, which nobody could remember to
have seen there the day before. Yet there they stood, with their roots
fastened deep into the soil, and a huge breadth of foliage overshadowing
the whole front of the edifice. One was an oak, and the other a
linden-tree. Their boughs--it was strange and beautiful to see--were
intertwined together, and embraced one another, so that each tree seemed
to live in the other tree's bosom much more than in its own.

While the guests were marveling how these trees, that must have required
at least a century to grow, could have come