lth, he bethought himself of his native valley, and resolved to go
back thither, and end his days where he was born. With this purpose in
view, he sent a skilful architect to build him such a palace as should
be fit for a man of his vast wealth to live in.

As I have said above, it had already been rumored in the valley that
Mr. Gathergold had turned out to be the prophetic personage so long and
vainly looked for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable
similitude of the Great Stone Face. People were the more ready to
believe that this must needs be the fact, when they beheld the splendid
edifice that rose, as if by enchantment, on the site of his father's
old weatherbeaten farm-house. The exterior was of marble, so dazzlingly
white that it seemed as though the whole structure might melt away in
the sunshine, like those humbler ones which Mr. Gathergold, in his
young play-days, before his fingers were gifted with the touch of
transmutation, had been accustomed to build of snow. It had a richly
ornamented portico, supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a
lofty door, studded with silver knobs, and made of a kind of variegated
wood that had been brought from beyond the sea. The windows, from the
floor to the ceiling of each stately apartment, were composed,
respectively, of but one enormous pane of glass, so transparently pure
that it was said to be a finer medium than even the vacant atmosphere.
Hardly anybody had been permitted to see the interior of this palace;
but it was reported, and with good semblance of truth, to be far more
gorgeous than the outside, insomuch that whatever was iron or brass in
other houses was silver or gold in this; and Mr. Gathergold's
bedchamber, especially, made such a glittering appearance that no
ordinary man would have been able to close his eyes there. But, on the
other hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so inured to wealth, that perhaps he
could not have closed his eyes unless where the gleam of it was certain
to find its way beneath his eyelids.

In due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers, with
magnificent furniture; then, a whole troop of black and white servants,
the harbingers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majestic person, was
expected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest, meanwhile, had been
deeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the noble man, the man
of prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length to be made
manifest to his