shed round the turn of the road.
Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the face of a
little old man, with a skin as yellow as gold. He had a low forehead,
small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very
thin lips, which he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly
together.

"The very image of the Great Stone Face!" shouted the people. "Sure
enough, the old prophecy is true."

And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe that
here was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there chanced
to be an old beggar woman and two little beggar children, stragglers
from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out
their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously
beseeching charity. A yellow claw--the very same that had clawed
together so much wealth--poked itself out of the coach window, and
dropped some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great
man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have
been nicknamed Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest
shout, and evidently with as much good faith as ever, the people
bellowed:

"He is the very image of the Great Stone Face!"

But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that visage and
gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last
sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious features which had
impressed themselves into his soul. Their aspect cheered him. What did
the benign lips seem to say?

"He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!"

The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to be a
young man now. He attracted little notice from the other inhabitants of
the valley, for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, save
that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and
gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to their idea of
the matter, however, it was a pardonable folly, for Ernest was
industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake of
this idle habit. They knew not that the Great Stone Face had become a
teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed in it would
enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with wider and deeper
sympathies than other hearts. They knew not that thence would come a
better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a better life than
could be mold