affords us a crust of bread, let us be ready to give half to any poor,
homeless stranger that may come along and need it."

"That's right, husband!" said Baucis. "So we will!"

These old folks, you must know, were quite poor, and had to work pretty
hard for a living. Old Philemon toiled diligently in his garden, while
Baucis was always busy with her distaff, or making a little butter and
cheese with their cow's milk, or doing one thing and another about the
cottage. Their food was seldom anything but bread, milk, and vegetables,
with sometimes a portion of honey from their beehive, and now and then a
bunch of grapes, that had ripened against the cottage wall. But they
were two of the kindest old people in the world, and would cheerfully
have gone without their dinners, any day, rather than refuse a slice of
their brown loaf, a cup of nice milk, and a spoonful of honey, to the
weary traveler who might pause before their door. They felt as if such
guests had a sort of holiness, and that they ought, therefore, to treat
them better and more bountifully than their own selves.

Their cottage stood on a rising ground, at some short distance from a
village, which lay in a hollow valley, that was about half a mile in
breadth. This valley, in past ages, when the world was new, had probably
been the bed of a lake. There, fishes had glided to and fro in the
depths, and water-weeds had grown along the margin, and trees and hills
had seen their reflected images in the broad and peaceful mirror. But,
as the waters subsided, men had cultivated the soil, and built houses on
it, so that it was now a fertile spot, and bore no traces of the ancient
lake, except a very small brook, which meandered through the midst of
the village, and supplied the inhabitants with water. The valley had
been dry land so long that oaks had sprung up, and grown great and high,
and perished with old age, and been succeeded by others, as tall and
stately as the first. Never was there a prettier or more fruitful
valley. The very sight of the plenty around them should have made the
inhabitants kind and gentle and ready to show their gratitude to
Providence by doing good to their fellow-creatures.

But, we are sorry to say, the people of this lovely village were not
worthy to dwell in a spot on which Heaven had smiled so beneficently.
They were a very selfish and hard-hearted people, and had no pity for
the poor, nor sympathy with the homeless. They would only