"Ah me! Well-a-day!" exclaimed Philemoi, 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 then what naughty people they are!"

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

The elder traveller'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 traveller, in tones so deep that 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