o be looked to in a building--that it
stand on the right spot; that it be securely founded; that it be
successfully executed. The first is the business of the master of the
house--his and his only. As in the city the prince and the council alone
determine where a building shall be, so in the country it is the right
of the lord of the soil that he shall say, 'Here my dwelling shall
stand; here, and nowhere else.'"

Edward and Ottilie were standing opposite one another, as these words
were spoken; but they did not venture to look up and exchange glances.

"To the third, the execution, there is neither art nor handicraft which
must not in some way contribute. But the second, the founding, is the
province of the mason; and, boldly to speak it out, it is the head and
front of all the undertaking--a solemn thing it is--and our bidding you
descend hither is full of meaning. You are celebrating your Festival in
the deep of the earth. Here within this small hollow spot, you show us
the honor of appearing as witnesses of our mysterious craft. Presently
we shall lower down this carefully-hewn stone into its place; and soon
these earth-walls, now ornamented with fair and worthy persons, will be
no more accessible--but will be closed in forever!

"This foundation-stone, which with its angles typifies the just angles
of the building, with the sharpness of its molding, the regularity of
it, and with the truth of its lines to the horizontal and perpendicular,
the uprightness and equal height of all the walls, we might now without
more ado let down--it would rest in its place with its own weight. But
even here there shall not fail of lime and means to bind it. For as
human beings who may be well inclined to each other by nature, yet hold
more firmly together when the law cements them, so are stones also,
whose forms may already fit together, united far better by these binding
forces. It is not seemly to be idle among the working, and here you will
not refuse to be our fellow-laborer;" with these words he reached the
trowel to Charlotte, who threw mortar with it under the stone--several
of the others were then desired to do the same, and then it was at once
let fall. Upon which the hammer was placed next in Charlotte's, and then
in the others' hands, to strike three times with it, and conclude, in
this expression, the wedlock of the stone with the earth.

"The work of the mason," went on the speaker, "now under the free sky as
we are,