'Mother,' said he, while the Titanic visage miled on him, 'I wish that
it could speak, for it looks so very kindly that its voice must needs
be pleasant. If I were to See a man with such a face, I should love him
dearly.' 'If an old prophecy should come to pass,' answered his mother,
'we may see a man, some time for other, with exactly such a face as
that.' 'What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?' eagerly inquired
Ernest. 'Pray tell me all about it!'

So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when
she herself was younger than little Ernest; a story, not of things that
were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very
old, that even the Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had
heard it from their forefathers, to whom, as they affirmed, it had been
murmured by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the
tree-tops. The purport was, that, at some future day, a child should
be born hereabouts, who was destined to become the greatest and noblest
personage of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should bear
an exact resemblance to the Great Stone Face. Not a few old-fashioned
people, and young ones likewise, in the ardor of their hopes, still
cherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy. But others, who had
seen more of the world, had watched and waited till they were weary, and
had beheld no man with such a face, nor any man that proved to be much
greater or nobler than his neighbors, concluded it to be nothing but
an idle tale. At all events, the great man of the prophecy had not yet
appeared.

'O mother, dear mother!' cried Ernest, clapping his hands above his head,
'I do hope that I shall live to see him!'