an at all the world
besides. But the secret was, that the boy's tender and confiding
simplicity discerned what other people could not see; and thus the love,
which was meant for all, became his peculiar portion.

About this time, there went a rumor throughout the valley, that the
great man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a resemblance to
the Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems that, many years
before, a young man had migrated from the valley and settled at a
distant seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he had
set up as a shopkeeper. His name--but I could never learn whether it was
his real one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success
in life--was Gathergold. Being shrewd and active, and endowed by
Providence with that inscrutable faculty which develops itself in what
the world calls luck, he became an exceedingly rich merchant, and owner
of a whole fleet of bulky-bottomed ships. All the countries of the globe
appeared to join hands for the mere purpose of adding heap after heap to
the mountainous accumulation of this one man's wealth. The cold regions
of the north, almost within the gloom and shadow of the Arctic Circle,
sent him their tribute in the shape of furs; hot Africa sifted for him
the golden sands of her rivers, and gathered up the ivory tusks of her
great elephants out of the forests; the East came bringing him the rich
shawls, and spices, and teas, and the effulgence of diamonds, and the
gleaming purity of large pearls. The ocean, not to be behindhand with
the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that Mr. Gathergold might sell
their oil, and make a profit on it. Be the original commodity what it
might, it was gold within his grasp. It might be said of him, as of
Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger immediately
glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into sterling metal,
or, which suited him still better, into piles of coin. And, when Mr.
Gathergold had become so very rich that it would have taken him a
hundred years only to count his wealth, 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 pe