as if he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends. Ernest received these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had marked him from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost, or lay deepest in his 5 heart or their own. While they talked together, his face would kindle and shine upon them, as with a mild evening light. When his guests took leave and went their way, and passing up the valley, paused to look at the Great Stone Face, they imagined that they had seen its likeness in a 10 human countenance, but could not remember where.

While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful Providence had granted a new poet to this earth. He, likewise, was a native of the valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from that romantic 15 region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and din of cities. Often, however, did the mountains which had been familiar to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere of his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Face forgotten, for he had celebrated 20it in a poem which was grand enough to have been uttered by its own majestic lips.

The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. He read them after his customary toil, seated on the bench before his cottage door, where for such a length of time he 25 had filled his repose with thought, by gazing at the Great Stone Face. And now as he read stanzas that caused the soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast countenance beaming on him so benignantly.

"O majestic friend," he murmured, addressing the

Great Stone Face, "is not this man worthy to resemble thee?"

The Face seemed to smile, but answered not a word.

Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not only heard of Ernest, but had medi- 5 tated much upon his character, until he deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man whose untaught wisdom walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of his life. One summer morning, therefore, he took passage by the railroad, and, in the decline of the afternoon, alighted 10 from the cars at no great distance from Ernest's cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpetbag on his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be accepted as his guest.

Approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a volume in his hand, which he read, and then, with a finger between the leaves, looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face.

15

"Good evening," said the poet. "Can you give a 20 traveler a night's lodging?"

"Willingly," answered Ernest. And then he added, smiling, "Methinks I never saw the Great Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger."

The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he 25 and Ernest talked together. Often had the poet conversed with the wittiest and the wisest, but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and feelings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths

so familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had been so often said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the fields; angels seemed to have sat with him by the fireside. So thought the poet. And Ernest, 5 on the other hand, was moved by the living images which the poet flung out of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottage door with shapes of beauty.

As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face was bending forward to listen too. He 10 gazed earnestly into the poet's glowing eyes.

"Who are you, my strangely gifted guest?" he said.

The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest had been reading.

"You have read these poems," said he. "You know me, 15 then, for I wrote them."

20

Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet's features; then turned toward the Great Stone Face; then back to his guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his head, and sighed.

"Wherefore are you sad?" inquired the poet.

"Because," replied Ernest, "all through life I have awaited the fulfillment of a prophecy; and when I read these poems, I hoped that it might be fulfilled in you."

"You hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, "to 25 find in me the likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as formerly with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz. Yes, Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name to the illustrious three, and record another failure of your hopes.

For in shame and sadness do I speak it, Ernest I am not worthy."

"And why?" asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. "Are not those thoughts divine?”

"You can hear in them the far-off echo of a heavenly 5 song," replied the poet. "But my life, dear Ernest, has not corresponded with my thought. I have had grand dreams, but they have been only dreams, because I have lived - and that, too, by my own choice among poor and mean realities. Sometimes even shall I dare to 10 say it? I lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the goodness which my own works are said to have made more evident in nature and in human life. Why, then, pure seeker of the good and true, shouldst thou hope to find me in yonder image of the divine?"

The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise, were those of Ernest.

VI

15

At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest was to speak to an assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the open air. He and the poet, 20 arm in arm, still talking together as they went along, proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the hills, with a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the pleasant foliage of many creeping plants, that made a tapestry for the naked rock by hanging their 25 festoons from all its rugged angles. At a small elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure, there

E

appeared a niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure. Into this natural pulpit Ernest ascended and threw a look of familiar kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat, or reclined upon the grass, as seemed good 5 to each, with the departing sunshine falling over them. In another direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with the same cheer, combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect.

Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what 10 was in his heart and mind. His words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts; and his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the life which he had always lived. The poet, as he listened, felt that the being and character of Ernest were a nobler strain 15 of poetry than he had ever written. His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed reverentially at the venerable man, and said within himself that never was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance with the glory of white hair diffused about 20 it. At a distance, but distinctly to be seen, high up in the golden light of the setting sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with hoary mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest. Its look of grand beneficence seemed to embrace the world.

25 At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter, the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so full of benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms aloft, and shouted: