wisdom, and doing good, and making people happy. But, taking an habitual
breadth of view, with all his simplicity, he contended that providence
should choose its own method of blessing mankind, and could conceive
that this great end might be effected even by a warrior and a bloody
sword, should inscrutable wisdom see fit to order matters SO.

'The general! the general!' was now the cry. 'Hush! silence! Old
Blood-and-Thunder's going to make a speech.'

Even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general's health had been
drunk, amid shouts of applause, and he now stood upon his feet to thank
the company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the
crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar upward,
beneath the arch of green boughs with intertwined laurel, and the banner
drooping as if to shade his brow! And there, too, visible in the same
glance, through the vista of the forest, appeared the Great Stone Face!
And was there, indeed, such a resemblance as the crowd had testified?
Alas, Ernest could not recognize it! He beheld a war-worn and
weather-beaten countenance, full of energy, and expressive of an iron
will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad, tender sympathies, were
altogether wanting in Old Blood-and-Thunder's visage; and even if the
Great Stone Face had assumed his look of stern command, the milder
traits would still have tempered it.

'This is not the man of prophecy,' sighed Ernest to himself, as he made
his way out of the throng. 'And must the world wait longer yet?'

The mists had congregated about the distant mountainside, and there were
seen the grand and awful features of the Great Stone Face, awful but
benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills, and