ught himself of a
profitable use for this bright stone. Hannah here and I are seeking it
for a like purpose.'

'How, fellow!' exclaimed his lordship, in surprise. 'What castle hall
hast thou to hang it in?'

'No castle,' replied Matthew, 'but as neat a cottage as any within sight
of the Crystal Hills. Ye must know, friends, that Hannah and I, being
wedded the last week, have taken up the search of the Great Carbuncle,
because we shall need its light in the long winter evenings; and it will
be such a pretty thing to show the neighbors when they visit us. It will
shine through the house so that we may pick up a pin in any corner, and
will set all the windows aglowing as if there were a great fire of pine
knots in the chimney. And then how pleasant, when we awake in the night,
to be able to see one another's faces!'

There was a general smile among the adventurers at the simplicity of the
young couple's project in regard to this wondrous and invaluable stone,
with which the greatest monarch on earth might have been proud to adorn
his palace. Especially the man with spectacles, who had sneered at all
the company in turn, now twisted his visage into such an expression of
ill-natured mirth, that Matthew asked him, rather peevishly, what he
himself meant to do with the Great Carbuncle.

'The Great Carbuncle!' answered the Cynic, with ineffable scorn. 'Why,
you blockhead, there is no such thing in rerum natura. I have come three
thousand miles, and am resolved to set my foot on every peak of these
mountains, and poke my head into every chasm, for the sole purpose of
demonstrating to the satisfaction of any man one whit less an ass than
thyself that the Great Carbuncle is all a humbug!'

Vain and foolish were the motives that had brought most of the
adventurers to the Crystal Hills; but none so vain, so foolish, and so
impious too, as that of the scoffer with the prodigious spectacles. He
was one of those wretched and evil men whose yearnings are downward to
the darkness, instead of heavenward, and who, could they but distinguish
the lights which God hath kindled for us, would count the midnight gloom
their chiefest glory. As the Cynic spoke, several of the party were
startled by a gleam of red splendor, that showed the huge shapes of the
surrounding mountains and the rock-bed of the turbulent river with an
illumination unlike that of their fire on the trunks and black boughs
of the forest trees. They listened for the roll