and reaching that boulder he dropped upon it like another stone.

And now, strange to say, the uneasiness and perplexity which had
possessed him ever since he had stood before his revealed wealth
dropped from him like a burden laid upon the wayside. A
measureless peace stole over him, in which visions of his new-found
fortune, no longer a trouble and perplexity, but crowned with
happiness and blessing to all around him, assumed proportions far
beyond his own weak, selfish plans. In its even-handed
benefaction, his wife and children, his friends and relations, even
his late poor companion of the hillside, met and moved harmoniously
together; in its far-reaching consequences there was only the
influence of good. It was not strange that this poor finite mind
should never have conceived the meaning of the wealth extended to
him; or that conceiving it he should faint and falter under the
revelation. Enough that for a few minutes he must have tasted a
joy of perfect anticipation that years of actual possession might
never bring.

The sun seemed to go down in a rosy dream of his own happiness, as
he still sat there. Later, the shadows of the trees thickened and
surrounded him, and still later fell the calm of a quiet evening
sky with far-spaced passionless stars, that seemed as little
troubled by what they looked upon as he was by the stealthy
creeping life in the grasses and underbrush at his feet. The dull
patter of soft little feet in the soft dust of the road, the gentle
gleam of moist and wondering little eyes on the branches and in the
mossy edges of the boulder, did not disturb him. He sat patiently
through it all, as if he had not yet made up his mind.