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 , that 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 . And then there was a deep , broad murmur in the air , as if the two mysterious trees were speaking . `` I am old Philemon ! '' murmured the oak . `` I am old Baucis ! '' murmured the linden-tree . But , as the breeze grew stronger , the trees both spoke at once , -- `` Philemon ! Baucis ! Baucis ! Philemon ! '' -- as if one were both and both were one , and talking together in the depths of their mutual heart . It was plain enough to perceive that the good old couple had renewed their age , and were now to spend a quiet and delightful hundred years or so , Philemon as an oak , and Baucis as a linden-tree . And oh , what a hospitable shade did they fling around them !
Whenever a wayfarer paused beneath it , he heard a pleasant whisper XXXXX the leaves above his head , and wondered how the sound should so much resemble words like these : -- `` Welcome , welcome , dear traveller , welcome ! ''
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