`` 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 marvellous 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 overnight 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 marvelling how these trees , XXXXX must have required at least a century to grow , could have come to be so tall and venerable in a single night , a breeze sprang up , and set their intermingled boughs astir .
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