Aylmer of a symptom which for two or three hours past had begun to excite her attention. It was a sensation in the fatal birthmark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness throughout her system. 5 Hastening after her husband, she intruded for the first time into the laboratory. 10 The first thing that struck her eye was the furnace, that hot and feverish worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which by the quantities of soot clustered above it seemed to have been burning for ages. There was a distilling apparatus in full operation. Around the room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other ap- 15 paratus of chemical research. An electrical machine stood ready for immediate use. The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseous odors which had been tormented forth by the processes of science. The severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked walls and brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as Georgiana had become to the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly, indeed almost solely, drew her attention, was the aspect of Aylmer himself. He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace as if 3 it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or misery. How different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had assumed for Georgiana's encouragement! 3 Carefully now, Aminadab; carefully, thou human machine carefullv, thou man of clay!' muttered Aylmer, more to himself than his assistant. Now, if there 40 be a thought too much or too little, it is all over.' 'No, no, Georgiana!' said Aylmer, impatiently; it must not be.' 'I submit,' replied she calmly. And, Aylmer, I shall quaff whatever draught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that would induce me to take a dose of poison if offered by your hand.' 'My noble wife,' said Aylmer, deeply moved; I knew not the height and depui of your nature until now. Nothing shall be concealed. Know, then, that this crimson hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp into your being with a strength of which I had no previous conception. I have already administered agents powerful enough to do aught except to change your entire physical system. Only one thing remains to be tried. If that fail us we are ruined.' 'Why did vou hesitate to tell me this?' asked she. Because, Georgiana,' said Aylmer, in a low voice, there is danger.' 'Danger? There is but one danger that this horrible stigma shall be left upon my cheek!' cried Georgiana. 'Remove it, remove it, whatever be the cost, or we shall both go mad! 'Heaven knows your words are too true,' said Aylmer, sadly. And now, dearest, return to your boudoir. In a little while all will be tested.' He conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous moment. Her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable loveso pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of. She felt how much more precious was such a sentiment than that meaner kind which would have borne with the imperfection for her sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy love by degrading its perfect idea to the level. of the actual; and with her whole spirit she prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and deepest conception. Longer than one moment she well knew it could not be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever ascending, and each instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant before. It is grateful,' said she with a placid. smile. 'Methinks it is like water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of unobtrusive fragrance and 5 deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My earthly senses are closing over my spirit like the leaves around the heart of a rose at sunIo set.' The sound of her husband's footsteps aroused her. He bore a crystal goblet containing a liquor colorless as water, but bright enough to be the draught of immortality. Aylmer was pale; but it 15 seemed rather the consequence of a highlywrought state of mind and tension of spirit than of fear or doubt. 'The concoction of the draught has been perfect,' said he, in answer to 20 Georgiana's look. Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail.' 'Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer,' observed his wife, I might wish to put off this birthmark of mortality by re- 25 linquishing mortality itself in preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad possession to those who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at which I stand. Were I weaker and 30 blinder it might be happiness. Were I stronger, it might be endured hopefully. But, being what I find myself, methinks I am of all mortals the most fit to die.' 'You are fit for heaven without tast- 35 ing death!' replied her husband. But why do we speak of dying? The draught cannot fail. Behold its effect upon this plant.' On the window seat there stood a gera- 40 nium diseased with yellow blotches, which had overspread all its leaves. Aylmer poured a small quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little time, when the roots of the plant had taken 45 up the moisture, the unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a living verdure. Mingled She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required almost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and lingering syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere she was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect with the emotions proper to a man the whole value of whose existence was involved in the process now to be tested. with this mood, however, was the philosophic investigation characteristic of the man of science. Not the minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid, a hardly perceptible tremor through the frame,- such were the details which, as the moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. Intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that volume, but the thoughts of years were all concentrated upon the last. The While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand, and not without a shudder. Yet once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse, he pressed it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, however, in the very act; and Georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasily and murmured as if in remonstrance. Again Aylmer resumed his watch. Nor was it without avail. crimson hand, which at first had been strongly visible upon the marble paleness of Georgiana's cheek, now grew more faintly outlined. She remained not less pale than ever; but the birthmark, with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of its former distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its departure was more awful still. Watch the stain of the rainbow fading out of the sky, and you will know how that mysterious symbol passed away. 'By Heaven! it is well-nigh gone!' said Aylmer to himself, in almost irrepressible ecstasy. I can scarcely trace it now. Success! success! And now it is like the faintest rose color. The lightest flush of blood across her cheek would overcome it. But she is so pale!' completeness of a higher state. Yet, had Aylmer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which would have woven his mortal 5 life of the selfsame texture with the celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and living once for all in eternity, to find the He drew aside the window curtain and suffered the light of natural day to fall into the room and rest upon her cheek. At the same time he heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant Aminadab's expression of de- 10 perfect future in the present. light. Ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!' cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of frenzy, you have served me well! Matter and spirit -earth and heaven-have both done 15 their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses! You have earned the right to laugh.' 20 These exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She slowly unclosed her eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged for that purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed 25 forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer's face with a trouble and anxiety that he could by no means account for. My poor Aylmer!' murmured she. Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!' exclaimed he. My peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!' My poor Aylmer,' she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!' 35 The Pioneer, March, 1843. THE GREAT STONE FACE One afternoon, when the sun was going down a mother and her little boy sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face. They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its fea tures. And what was the Great Stone Face? Embosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains there was a valley so spacious that it contained many thousand inhabitants. Some of these good people dwelt in log huts, with the black forest all 30 around them, on the steep and difficult hillsides. Others had their homes in comfortable farm-houses, and cultivated the. rich soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces of the valley. Others, again, were congregated into populous villages, where some wild, highland rivulet, tumbling down from its birthplace in the up per mountain region, had been caught and tamed by human cunning and compelled to turn the machinery of cotton-factories. The inhabitants of this valley, in short, were numerous, and of many modes of life. But all of them, grown people and children, had a kind of familiarity with the Great Stone Face, although some possessed the gift of distinguishing this grand natural phenomenon more perfectly than many of their neighbors. 40 The Great Stone Face, then, was a work Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic 45 spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark that sole token of human imperfection faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman 50 of Nature in her mood of majestic playpassed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight. Then hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the gross fatality of earth 55 exult in its invariable triumph over the immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half development, demands the a fulness, formed on the perpendicular side. of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous giant, or a Titan, had sculptured his own likeness 10 on the precipice. There was the broad who formerly inhabited this valley, had heard it from their forefathers, to whom, as they affirmed, it had been murmured by the mountain streams, and whispered by 5 the wind among the tree-tops. The pur port was, that, at some future day, a child should be born hereabouts, who was destined to become the greatest and noblest personage of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the Great Stone Face. Not a few old-fashioned people, and young ones likewise, in the ardor of their hopes, still cherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy. But others who had seen more of the world, had watched and waited till they were weary, and had beheld no man with such a face, nor any man that proved to be much greater or nobler 20 than his neighbors, concluded it to be nothing but an idle tale. At all events, the great man of the prophecy had not yet appeared. O mother, dear mother!' cried Er head, I do hope that I shall live to see him!' It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with the Great Stone Face before their eyes, for all the features were noble, and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if 25 nest, clapping his hands above his it were the glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its affections, and had room for more. It was an education only to look at it. According to the belief of many people, the valley 30 owed much of its fertility to this benign aspect that was continually beaming over it, illuminating the clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the sunshine. As we began with saying, a mother and 35 her little bov sat at their cottage-door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it. The child's name was Er nest. His mother was an affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it was wisest not to discourage the generous hopes of her little boy. So she only said to him, 'Perhaps you may.' And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It was always in his mind, whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. He spent his childhood in the log cottage where he was born, and was dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting her much with his little hands, and more with his loving heart. In this manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a mild, quiet, unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in the 45 fields, but with more intelligence brightening his aspect than is seen in many lads who have been taught at famous schools. Yet Ernest had had no teacher, save only that the Great Stone Face became one 'Mother,' said he, while the Titanic 40 visage smiled on him, I wish that it could speak, for it looks so very kindly that its voice must needs be pleasant. If I were to see a man with such a face, I should love him dearly.' 'If an old prophecy should come to pass,' answered his mother, we may see a man, some time or other, with exactly such a face as that.' 'What prophecy do you mean, dear 50 to him. When the toil of the day was mother?' eagerly inquired Ernest. 'Pray tell me all about it!' So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when she herself was younger than little Ernest; 55 a story, not of things that were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very old, that even the Indians, over, he would gaze at it for hours, until he began to imagine that those vast features recognized him, and gave him a smile of kindness and encouragement, responsive to his own look of veneration. We must not take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, although the face may have looked no more kindly at Ernest than 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. 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. Gather5 gold 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 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 to believe that this must needs be the fact, The Face, had appeared at last. It seems that, when they beheld the splendid edifice that rose, as if by enchantment, on the site of his father's old weather-beaten farmhouse. 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 playdays, 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 |