vainly have sought an avenue to the blessed earth
which they had lost. And the lovers yearned to behold that green earth
again--more intensely, alas! than beneath a clouded sky they had ever
desired a glimpse of heaven. They even felt it a relief to their
desolation when the mists, creeping gradually up the mountain,
concealed its lonely peak, and thus annihilated--at least, for
them--the whole region of visible space. But they drew closer together
with a fond and melancholy gaze, dreading lest the universal cloud
should snatch them from each other's sight. Still, perhaps, they would
have been resolute to climb as far and as high between earth and
heaven as they could find foothold if Hannah's strength had not begun
to fail, and with that her courage also. Her breath grew short. She
refused to burden her husband with her weight, but often tottered
against his side, and recovered herself each time by a feebler effort.
At last she sank down on one of the rocky steps of the acclivity.

"We are lost, dear Matthew," said she, mournfully; "we shall never
find our way to the earth again. And oh how happy we might have been
in our cottage!"

"Dear heart, we will yet be happy there," answered Matthew. "Look! In
this direction the sunshine penetrates the dismal mist; by its aid I
can direct our course to the passage of the Notch. Let us go back,
love, and dream no more of the Great Carbuncle."

"The sun cannot be yonder," said Hannah, with despondence. "By this
time it must be noon; if there could ever be any sunshine here, it
would come from above our heads."

"But look!" repeated Matthew, in a somewhat altered tone. "It is
brightening every moment. If not sunshine, what can it be?"

Nor could the young bride any longer deny that a radiance was breaking
through the mist and changing its dim hue to a dusky red, which
continually grew more vivid, as if brilliant particles were interfused
with the gloom. Now, also, the cloud began to roll away from the
mountain, while, as it heavily withdrew, one object after another
started out of its impenetrable obscurity into sight with precisely
the effect of a new creation before the indistinctness of the old
chaos had been completely swallowed up. As the process went on they
saw the gleaming of water close at their feet, and found themselves on
the very border of a mountain-lake, deep, bright, clear and calmly
beautiful, spreading from brim to brim of a basin that had been
scooped out