if the loftiest mountain-peak had summoned a council of its kindred clouds.  Finally the vapors welded themselves, as it were, into a mass, presenting the appearance of a pavement over which the wanderers might have trodden, but where they would vainly have sought an avenue to the blessed earth which they had lost.  And the lovers yearned to behold that green earth again—­more intensely, alas! than beneath a clouded sky they had ever desired a glimpse of heaven.  They even felt it a relief to their desolation when the mists, creeping gradually up the mountain, concealed its lonely peak, and thus annihilated—­at least, for them—­the whole region of visible space.  But they drew closer together with a fond and melancholy gaze, dreading lest the universal cloud should snatch them from each other’s sight.  Still, perhaps, they would have been resolute to climb as far and as high between earth and heaven as they could find foothold if Hannah’s strength had not begun to fail, and with that her courage also.  Her breath grew short.  She refused to burden her husband with her weight, but often tottered against his side, and recovered herself each time by a feebler effort.  At last she sank down on one of the rocky steps of the acclivity.

“We are lost, dear Matthew,” said she, mournfully; “we shall never find our way to the earth again.  And oh how happy we might have been in our cottage!”

“Dear heart, we will yet be happy there,” answered Matthew.  “Look!  In this direction the sunshine penetrates the dismal mist; by its aid I can direct our course to the passage of the Notch.  Let us go back, love, and dream no more of the Great Carbuncle.”

“The sun cannot be yonder,” said Hannah, with despondence.  “By this time it must be noon; if there could ever be any sunshine here, it would come from above our heads.”

“But look!” repeated Matthew, in a somewhat altered tone.  “It is brightening every moment.  If not sunshine, what can it be?”

Nor could the young bride any longer deny that a radiance was breaking through the mist and changing its dim hue to a dusky red, which continually grew more vivid, as if brilliant particles were interfused with the gloom.  Now, also, the cloud began to roll away from the mountain, while, as it heavily withdrew, one object after another started out of its impenetrable obscurity into sight with precisely the effect of a new creation before the indistinctness of the old chaos had been completely swallowed up.  As the process went on they saw the gleaming of water close at their feet, and found themselves on the very border of a mountain-lake, deep, bright, clear and calmly beautiful, spreading from brim to brim of a basin that had been scooped out of the solid rock.  A ray of glory flashed across its surface.  The pilgrims looked whence it should proceed, but closed their eyes, with a thrill of awful admiration, to exclude the fervid splendor that glowed from the brow of a cliff impending over the enchanted lake.