before they suspected it themselves. They
sometimes wished, it is true, that he had not been quite so
quick-witted, and also that he would fling away his staff, which looked
so mysteriously mischievous, with the snakes always writhing about it.
But then, again, Quicksilver showed himself so very good-humored, that
they would have been rejoiced to keep him in their cottage, staff,
snakes, and all, every day, and the whole day long.

"Ah, me! Well-a-day!" exclaimed Philemon, when they had walked a little
way from their door. "If our neighbors only knew what a blessed thing it
is to show hospitality to strangers, they would tie up all their dogs,
and never allow their children to fling another stone."

"It is a sin and shame for them to behave so,--that it is!" cried good
old Baucis, vehemently. "And I mean to go this very day and tell some of
them what naughty people they are!"

"I fear," remarked Quicksilver, slyly smiling, "that you will find none
of them at home."

The elder traveler's brow, just then, assumed such a grave, stern, and
awful grandeur, yet serene withal, that neither Baucis nor Philemon
dared to speak a word. They gazed reverently into his face, as if they
had been gazing at the sky.

"When men do not feel towards the humblest stranger as if he were a
brother," said the traveler, in tones so deep they sounded like those of
an organ, "they are unworthy to exist on earth, which was created as the
abode of a great human brotherhood!"

"And, by the by, my dear old people," cried Quicksilver, with the
liveliest look of fun and mischief in his eyes, "where is this same
village that you talk about? On which side of us does it lie? Methinks I
do not see it hereabouts."

Philemon and his wife turned towards the valley, where, at sunset, only
the day before, they had seen the meadows, the houses, the gardens, the
clumps of trees, the wide, green-margined street, with children playing
in it, and all the tokens of business, enjoyment, and prosperity. But
what was their astonishment! There was no longer any appearance of a
village! Even the fertile vale, in the hollow of which it lay, had
ceased to have existence. In its stead, they beheld the broad, blue
surface of a lake, which filled the great basin of the valley from brim
to brim, and reflected the surrounding hills in its bosom, with as
tranquil an image as if it had been there ever since the creation of the
world. For an instant, the lake remained perf