With great eagerness and hope Ernest waited for his coming, and on the
day appointed went with the crowd to meet him. The air was filled with
music and the shouts of the people, for now they felt that surely the
old prophecy was to be fulfilled.
Then the great man's carriage came in view. There he sat, smiling and
bowing to the people, while they threw up their hats in wild excitement
and enthusiasm, and shouted: "Hoorah for Old Stony Phiz. The great man
has come at last."
Ernest looked long at the man as he sat in his carriage, but finally
turned away sadly and slowly, and said: "The features are alike, but he
has not the heart nor the love and sympathy which make a face beautiful.
He is not the man, but he might have been, had he lived the best he
knew."
Then again he turned to his great teacher on the mountain side, and, as
the late afternoon sun tinted all its features, it seemed to smile on
Ernest, and once more the lips seemed to speak:
"Lo, here I am, Ernest. I have waited longer than thou, and am not yet
weary.
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