world.

"And what," inquired Ralph Cranfield, with a tremor in his voice,--
"what may this office be, which is to equal me with kings and
potentates?"

"No less than instructor of our village school," answered Squire
Hawkwood; "the office being now vacant by the loath of the venerable
Master Whitaker, after a fifty years' incumbency."

"I will consider of your proposal," replied Ralph Cranfield,
hurriedly, "and will make known my decision within three days."

After a few more words, the village dignitary and his companions took
their leave. But to Cranfield's fancy their images were still
present, and became more and more invested with the dim awfulness of
figures which had first appeared to him in a dream, and afterwards had
shown themselves in his waking moments, assuming homely aspects among
familiar things. His mind dwelt upon the features of the Squire, till
they grew confused with those of the visionary Sage, and one appeared
but the shadow of the other. The same visage, he now thought, had
looked forth upon him from the Pyramid of Cheops; the same form had
beckoned to him among the colonnades of the Alhambra; the same figure
had mistily revealed itself through the ascending steam of the Great
Geyser. At every effort of his memory he recognized some trait of the
dreamy Messenger of Destiny, in this pompous, bustling, self-
important, little great man of the village. Amid such musings Ralph
Cranfield sat all day in the cottage, scarcely hearing and vaguely
answering his mother's thousand questions about his travels and
adventures. At sunset he roused himself to take a stroll, and,