176 THE MIRACULOUS PITCHER.

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!”

“T 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 g 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 Quick-