King Midas hastened back to the palace, and I suppose the servants knew not what to make of it when they saw their royal master so carefully bringing home an earthen pitcher of water.  But that water, which was to undo all the mischief that his folly had wrought, was more precious to Midas than an ocean of molten gold could have been.  The first thing he did, as you need hardly be told, was to sprinkle it by handfuls over the golden figure of little Marygold.

No sooner did it fall on her than you would have laughed to see how the rosy color came back to the dear child’s cheek, and how she began to sneeze and sputter, and how astonished she was to find herself dripping wet and her father still throwing more water over her.

“Pray do not, dear father!” cried she.  “See how you have wet my nice frock, which I put on only this morning.”

For Marygold did not know that she had been a little golden statue, nor could she remember anything that had happened since the moment when she ran with outstretched arms to comfort poor King Midas.

Her father did not think it necessary to tell his beloved child how very foolish he had been, but contented himself with showing how much wiser he had now grown.  For this purpose he led little Marygold into the garden, where he sprinkled all the remainder of the water over the rose-bushes, and with such good effect that above five thousand roses recovered their beautiful bloom.  There were two circumstances, however, which, as long as he lived, used to put King Midas in mind of the Golden Touch.

One was that the sands of the river sparkled like gold; the other, that little Marygold’s hair had now a golden tinge which he had never observed in it before she had been transmuted by the effect of his kiss.  The change of hue was really an improvement, and made Marygold’s hair richer than in her babyhood.

When King Midas had grown quite an old man and used to trot Marygold’s children on his knee, he was fond of telling them this marvelous story, pretty much as I have told it to you.  And then he would stroke their glossy ringlets and tell them that their hair likewise had a rich shade of gold, which they had inherited from their mother.

“And to tell you the truth, my precious little folks,” quoth King Midas, diligently trotting the children all the while, “ever since that morning I have hated the very sight of all other gold save this.”

Hawthorne was by no means the first man who ever told about King Midas, nor are the children who have lived since his time the first who ever heard this story; for hundreds and hundreds of years ago, in a country very different from ours, the little Greek children heard it told in a language that would seem very strange to us.  However, Hawthorne has by no means told the story just as the Greek mothers or Greek nurses might have told it to their children; he has added much which makes the story seem more real and the characters more human.