greeting than we have met with yonder, in the village. Pray, why do you
live in such a bad neighborhood?"

"Ah!" observed old Philemon, with a quiet and benign smile, "Providence
put me here, I hope, among other reasons, in order that I may make you
what amends I can for the inhospitality of my neighbors."

"Well said, old father!" cried the traveller, laughing; "and, if the
truth must be told, my companion and myself need some amends. Those
children (the little rascals!) have bespattered us finely with their
mud-ball; and one of the curs has torn my cloak, which was ragged enough
already. But I took him across the muzzle with my staff; and I think
you may have heard him yelp, even thus far off."

Philemon was glad to see him in such good spirits; nor, indeed, would
you have fancied, by the traveller's look and manner, that he was weary
with a long day's journey, besides being disheartened by rough treatment
at the end of it. He was dressed in rather an odd way, with a sort of
cap on his head, the brim of which stuck out over both ears. Though it
was a summer evening, he wore a cloak, which he kept wrapt closely about
him, perhaps because his under garments were shabby. Philemen
perceived, too, that he had on a singular pair of shoes; but, as it was
now growing dusk, and as the old man's eyesight was none the sharpest,
he could not precisely tell in what the strangeness consisted. One
thing, certainly, seemed queer. The traveller was so wonderfully light
and active, that it appeared as if his feet sometimes rose from the
ground of their own accord, or could only be kept down by an effort.

"I used to be light-footed, in my youth," said Philemen to the
traveller. "But I always found my feet grow heavier towards nightfall."