benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms
aloft and shouted--

'Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone
Face!'

Then all the people looked and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said
was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished what
he had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward, still
hoping that some wiser and better man than himself would by and by
appear, bearing a resemblance to the GREAT STONE FACE.





THE AMBITIOUS GUEST

One September night a family had gathered round their hearth, and piled
it high with the driftwood of mountain streams, the dry cones of the
pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees that had come crashing
down the precipice. Up the chimney roared the fire, and brightened the
room with its broad blaze. The faces of the father and mother had a
sober gladness; the children laughed; the eldest daughter was the image
of Happiness at seventeen; and the aged grandmother who sat knitting in
the warmest place, was the image of Happiness grown old. They had found
the 'herb, heart's-ease,' in the bleakest spot of all New England. (This
family were situated in the Notch of the White Hills, where the wind
was sharp throughout the year, and pitilessly cold in the winter--giving
their cottage all its fresh inclemency before it descended on the