so much wealth--poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some
copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man's name seems
to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed
Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest shout, and evidently
with as much good faith as ever, the people bellowed 'He is the very
image of the Great Stone Face!' But Ernest turned sadly from the
wrinkled shrewdness of that sordid visage, and gazed up the valley,
where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last sunbeams, he could
still distinguish those glorious features which had impressed themselves
into his soul. Their aspect cheered him. What did the benign lips seem
to say?

'He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!'

The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to be a
young man now. He attracted little notice from the other inhabitants
of the valley; for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, save
that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and
gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to their idea of
the matter, it was a folly, indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as Ernest
was industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the
sake of indulging this idle habit. They knew not that the Great Stone
Face had become a teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was
expressed in it would enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with
wider and deeper sympathies than other hearts. They knew not that thence
would come a better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a
better life than could be moulded on the defaced example of other human
lives. Neither did Ernest know that the thoughts and affections which
came to him so naturally, in the fields and at the fireside, and
wherever he communed with himself, were of a higher tone than those