his loving heart. In this manner, from a happy yet often pensive
child, he grew up to be a mild, quiet, unobtrusive boy, and
sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with more intelligence
brightening his aspect than is seen in many lads who have been
taught at famous schools. Yet Ernest had had no teacher, save
only that the Great Stone Face became one to him. When the toil
of the day was over, he would gaze at it for hours, until he
began to imagine that those vast features recognized him, and
gave him a smile of kindness and encouragement, responsive to his
own look of veneration. We must not take upon us to affirm that
this was a mistake, although the Face may have looked no more
kindly at Ernest than at all the world besides. But the secret
was that the boy's tender and confiding simplicity discerned what
other people could not see; and thus the love, which was meant
for all, became his peculiar portion.

About this time there went a rumor throughout the valley, that
the great man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a
resemblance to the Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It
seems that, many years before, a young man had migrated from the
valley and settled at a distant seaport, where, after getting
together a little money, he had set up as a shopkeeper. His
name--but I could never learn whether it was his real one, or a
nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in
life--was Gathergold. Being shrewd and active, and endowed by
Providence with that inscrutable faculty which develops itself in
what the world calls luck, he became an exceedingly rich
merchant, and owner of a whole fleet of bulky-bottomed ships. All
the countries of the globe appeared to join hands for the mere
purpose of adding heap after heap to the mountainous accumulation