ered the desire of both
their hearts.

"Let us live together, while we live, and 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