"And how long before the frit will be entirely melted?" asked Monsieur.

"From thirty-six to sixty hours. The time varies a good deal with the seasons, and different sorts of glass take different times to melt. This flint-glass melts the easiest, and common bottle-glass takes the longest. Crown-glass, such as is used for window-panes, comes between the two; but that is not made here."

"And when the glass is sufficiently boiled, what next?"

"You shall see, for here is a pot just opened, and this man with the long iron rod, called a pontil, or punty, in his hand, is about to skim it."

"What is there to skim off?"

"Oh, there will be impurities, of course, however carefully the ingredients are prepared. Some of these sink to the bottom, and some rise in scum, or, as it is called here, glass-gall, and sometimes sandiver."

"Just like broth or society, isn't it, Optima?" suggested Miselle, aside.

"Why don't you discover a social pontil, then?"

"Oh, I have no taste for reforming. What would there be to laugh at in the world, if the human sandiver were removed?"

"It might be an improvement to have the gall removed, my dear," remarked Optima, significantly; but Miselle was too busy in watching the skimming to understand the gentle rebuke.

Thrusting the pontil far into the pot, the workman moved it gently from side to side, turning it at the same time, until he suddenly withdrew upon its point a large lump of glowing substance, which he shook off upon a smooth iron table standing near, called a marver, (that is, marbre,) in size and shape not unlike the largest of a nest of teapoys. Here the lump of sandiver lay, while through its mass shot rays of vivid prismatic color, glowing and dying along its surface so vivaciously that one needs must fancy the salamander no fable, and that this death of gorgeous agony was something more than the mere cooling of an inert mass of matter.

"You see how bubbly and streaked that is now?" broke in the voice of Cicerone upon Miselle's little dream. "But after standing awhile the air will all escape from the pot, leaving the glass smoother, thicker, and tougher than it is now. Don't you want to look in, before it cools off?"

With a mental protest against the fate of those luckless individuals who threw Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego into the seven-times heated furnace, Miselle stooped, and, looking in, uttered a cry of surprise and delight.

It was the very soul of fire, the essence of light and heat. Above, rose a glowing arch, quivering with an intensity of color, such as fascinates the eye of the eagle to the noonday sun. Below, undulated in great oily waves a sea of molten matter, throbbing in vivid curves against the sides of its glowing basin. And arch and wall and heaving waves all mingled in a pure harmony, an accord, of light too intense for color, or rather a color so intense as to be nameless in this pale world.

Miselle knew now how the moth feels who plunges wildly into the flame that lures him to his death, and yet fascinates him beyond the power of resistance. The door was very small, or it might have been already too late, when Optima touched the shoulder of this modern Parsee, and suggested, calmly,—

"If you burn your eyes out here, my dear Miselle, you will be unable to see anything else."

The thought was a kind and sensible one, as, coming from Optima, it could not have failed of being; and Miselle stood upright, stared forlornly about her, and found the world very pale and weak, very cold and dark.

Was it to solace her sudden exile from fairy-land, or was it only as a customary courtesy, that an old man, wasted and paled by years of ministration at this fiery shrine, now seized a long, hollow iron rod, called a blow-stick, and, thrusting the smaller end into the pot, withdrew a small portion of the glass, and, while retaining it by a swift twirl, presented the mouth-piece of the tube to Miselle with a gesture so expressive that she immediately applied her lips to those of the blow-stick, and rounded her cheeks to the similitude of those corpulent little Breezes whom the old masters are so fond of depicting attendant upon the flight of their brothers the Winds?

Ah, my little dears, with your straws and soap-suds you will never blow a bubble like that! As it slowly rounded to its perfect sphere, what secrets of its birth within that glowing furnace, what mysteries of the pure element whose creation it seemed, flashed in fiery hieroglyph athwart its surface! A mocking globe, whereon were painted realms that may none the less exist, because man's feeble vision has never seen them, his fettered mind never imagined them. Who knows? It may have been the surface of the sun that was for one instant drawn upon that ball of liquid fire. Who is to limit the affinities, the subtle reproductions of Nature's grand ideas?

But as the wonder culminated, as the glancing rays resolved themselves into more positive lines, as the enigma seemed about to offer its own solution, the bubble broke, flew into a myriad tiny shards, which, with a tinkling laugh, fell to the grimy pavement, and lay there sparkling malicious fun into Miselle's eyes.

Cicerone stooped and gathered some of the fragments. Surely, never was substance so closely allied to shadow. The lightest touch, a breath even, and they were gone,—and were they caught, it was like the capture of one of the floating films of a summer morning, glancing brightly to the eye, but impalpable to the touch.

When all had looked, the guide slowly closed his hand with a cruel gripe, and, opening it, threw down a little shower of scintillating dust, an airy fall of powdered diamonds, lost as they readied the earth, and that was all.

"We're casting some of those Fresnel lanterns to-day. Perhaps the ladies would like to see them," suggested the pale little old man, and pointed to a powerful machine with a long lever-handle at the top, which, being thrown up, showed a heavy iron mould, heated quite hot, and just now smoking furiously from a fresh application of kerosene-oil, with which the mould is coated before each period of service, much as the housewife butters her griddle before each plateful of buckwheat cakes.

As the smoke subsided, the old man, who proved a very intelligent as well as civil person, thrust his pontil into the pot nearest the press, and, withdrawing a sufficient quantity of the glass, dropped it squarely into the open mould, whose operator, immediately seizing the long handle, swung himself from it in a grotesque effort to increase the natural gravity of his body, and succeeded in bringing it down with great force. Then, leaning over the lever in a state of complacent exhaustion, he glared for a moment at the spectators with the calm superiority of one who, having climbed to the summit of knowledge, can afford to pity the ignorant crowd groping below.

The mould being reopened presently displayed a large, heavy lantern, whose curiously elaborate flutings and pencillings were, as the intelligent artisan averred, arranged upon the principle of the famous Fresnel light, whose introduction some years ago marked an epoch in the history of light-houses.

"Why, Miss, these little up-and-down marks, that you'd take it were just put in for fancy," said William Greaves, "have got a patent on 'em, and no one else could put 'em into a lantern without being prosecuted."

"But why? What difference do they make?"

"Why, Miss, every one of them fingerings makes a lens; you see it's just the same inside as out, and it sort of spreads the light. That a'n't the way to call it, but that's the idea; for the man that got it up was down here, and I talked with him."

"And what are they for?"

"For ships' lanterns, Ma'am. They take this round lantern, when it's all done here, and split it in two halves up and down, and then put one on each side a vessel's bows just like the lamps on a doctor's gig, and the bowsprit runs out between just like the horse does in the gig."

At this juncture a small boy rushed up, and, thrusting a stick into the still red-hot lantern, dexterously tilted it up and carried it away to a furnace of different construction from the first, into one of whose open doors he thrust it, and then returned to wait for another.

This furnace, called a flashing-furnace, was round like the first, and was fitted with eight or ten doors, from all of which the flames rushed eagerly, and in a very startling fashion.

"This is fed constantly with coal-oil," expounded Cicerone. "It is brought in pipes, as you see, and drips down inside. These doors are called 'glory-holes'"——

"Aureoles, perhaps," suggested Optima, in a whisper.

"And the lanterns, or whatever is in hand, are brought here after pressing, and put in to get well heated through again before they are given to the finisher. Fire-polishing they call it. Here you see one just ready to be taken out."

"He will drop it," cried Miselle, as another boy, wielding a pontil with a lump of melted glass at the end, darted before her, and, pressing this heated end against the bottom of the lantern, picked it up and carried it away, over his shoulder, as if he were a stray member of some torch-light procession.

"Not he! He's too well used to his trade," laughed Monsieur. "Now come and see the finishing process."

Following the steps of the young wide-awake, Miselle saw him deliver the pontil, with the lantern still attached, to a listless individual seated upon a bench whose long iron arms projected far in front of him, while an idle pontil lay across them. This the boy snatched up and departed, while the man, suddenly rousing himself, began to roll the new pontil up and down the arms of his bench with his left hand, while with a pair of compasses in his right he carefully gauged the diameter of the revolving lantern, and then smoothed away its rough-cast edges by means of a blackened bit of wood, somewhat of the shape, and bearing the name, of a battledoor.

The finishing over, another stick was thrust inside the lantern, and it was separated from the pontil by the application of a bit of cold iron. It was then carried to the mouth of a long gallery-like oven, moderately heated, and fitted with a movable floor, upon which the articles put in at the hot end were slowly transported through a carefully graduated atmosphere to the cool end at a distance of perhaps a hundred feet, and on their arrival were ready to be packed for transportation.

This process was called annealing, and the oven with a movable floor was technically denominated a leer.

"Here they are pressing tumblers," continued the guide, pointing to a press of smaller size and power, standing near another door of the same furnace. "They have just had a large order from California, from a single firm, for—how many tumblers did you tell me, Mr. Greaves?"

"Twenty-two thousand dozen, Sir; and we shall have to spring to get them off at the time set."

"Nice tumblers they are, too,—just as good as cut, to my mind," continued Cicerone, poking with his stick at one of the batch that was now being placed in the leer.

Very nice and clear they were, but not as good as cut to Miselle's mind, and she remarked,—

"It is very easy to feel the difference, if not to see it, between cut and pressed glass. The latter always has these blunted angles to the facets, and has a certain vagueness and want of purpose about it; then it is not so heavy or so sparkling; there is a certain exhilaration in the gleam of cut glass that fits it for purposes to which the other would be entirely unsuited. Fancy Champagne in a pressed goblet, or tuberoses and japonicas in a pressed vase, or attar in a pressed flacon!"

"Fortunately," replied Monsieur, to whom this aside had been addressed, "the persons who consider Champagne, japonicas, and attar of roses necessaries of life are very well able to provide cut-glass receptacles for them. But isn't it worth one's while to be proud of a country where every artisan's wife has her tumblers, her goblets, her vases, of pressed glass, certainly, but 'as good, to her mind, as cut,' to quote our friend? and don't you think it better that twenty-two thousand dozen pressed tumblers should be sold at ten cents apiece than one-third that number of cut ones at thirty cents, leaving all those who cannot pay the higher price to drink out of"——

"Clam-shells? Well, perhaps. Equality and the rights of man are very nice, of course, but I"——

"Like cut glass better," retorted Monsieur, laughing, while Miselle turned a little indignantly to the guide, who was saying,—

"The reason the edges have that blunted look is partly because they can't be struck as sharp as they can be ground, and then being heated in the glory-holes, and again in the leers softens them down a little. In fact, the very idea of annealing is to make the outside particles of the glass run together just a very little, so as to fill up the pores as it were, and make a smoother surface. If this were not done, it would fly all to pieces the first time it was put into hot water."

"The cut glass is not annealed, then?"

"Oh, yes, after it is blown it is; and although the grinding takes off part of the surface, I suppose it fills up the pores at the same time."

"Cut glass is more apt to break in hot water than pressed or simply blown glass," remarked Madame.

"And is all cut glass blown in the first place?" asked Optima.

"No, Miss, a good deal of it is pressed and then ground, either wholly or in part; but this is not so clear or free from waves as the blown. Out here is a man blowing liqueur-glasses. Perhaps you would like to see that."

The idea of blowing a bubble of glass into so intricate a shape, and timing the process so that the brittle material should harden only when it had reached the desired form, struck Miselle's mind as very incredible; and she followed Cicerone with much curiosity to another furnace, where one man, blow-pipe in hand, was dipping up a small quantity of the liquid glass, and, having blown into it just long enough to make a stout little bubble, laid the pipe across the iron arms of a bench, where sat another operator, who immediately began to roll the pipe up and down the arms of his chair, while with a supple iron instrument, shaped like sugar-tongs with flattened bowls, he laid hold of the bubble, and, while elongating it into a tube, brought the lower extremity first to a point and then to a stem. To the end of this the assistant now touched his pontil, upon whose end he had taken up a little more glass, and this, being twisted in a ring round the foot of the stem, divided from the pontil by a huge pair of scissors, dexterously shaped with the plyers, and finally smoothed with a battledoor, became the foot of the wine-glass. The heated pontil was now applied exactly to the centre of this foot, the top of the glass divided from the blow-pipe by the application of cold iron, and the whole thrust for a few moments into the mouth of the furnace to soften, while the first man laid another pipe with another bubble at the end before the operator upon the bench, who recommenced the same process.

The first glass, meantime, rendered once more ductile by heat, was passed to another man upon another bench, who, keeping up all the while the rotatory motion necessary to preserve the form of the softened material, smoothed it with the battledoor, gauged it with the compasses, coaxed it with the sugar-tongs, and finally trimmed it around the top with his scissors as easily as if it had been of paper. It was then cracked off from the pontil and carried away, a finished liqueur-glass of the tiniest size, to be annealed. After this it might be used in its simple condition, or ornamented with engraving, while the bottom of the foot, still rough from contact with the pontil, was to be ground, smoothed, and then polished.

"Oh, how lovely! Look, Miselle, at this ruby glass," cried out Optima.

"Gorgeous!" assented Miselle, peeping into a small pot where glowed and heaved what seemed in very truth a mass of molten rubies.

"What are you going to make of this beautiful glass?" inquired she, enthusiastically, of a pleasant-looking man who was patiently waiting for room to approach his work.

"Lamp-globes, Ma'am," returned he, sententiously.

"Poor Miselle! You thought it would be Cinderella's slipper, at least, didn't you?" laughed Optima. "But look!"

The man, dipping his pipe, not into the ruby glass, but into an adjoining pot of fine flint-glass, carefully blew a small globe, and then removing the tube from his mouth swung it about in the air for a few moments, until it had gained a certain degree of firmness. Then dipping the bubble into the precious pot of ruby glass, (whose color, as Cicerone mysteriously whispered, was derived from an oxide of gold,) he withdrew it coated with the brilliant color, and so softened by the heat as to be capable of further distension. After gently blowing, until the shade had reached its proper size, the workman handed it to another, who, rolling it upon the iron arms of his bench, made an opening, at the point diametrically opposite that attached to the blow-pipe, with the end of the compasses, and carefully enlarged, gauged, and shaped it, by means of plyers and battledoor.

"Pretty soon you will see how they cut the figures out and show the white glass underneath," said the guide; but Miselle's attention was at this moment engrossed by a series of small explosions, apparently close at hand, and disagreeably suggestive of the final ascension of the Glass Works, inclusive of all the pale men and boys, who might certainly be supposed purified by fire, and ready to be released from the furnace of affliction. Not feeling herself worthy to join this sublimated throng, Miselle hastily communicated the idea to Optima, and proposed a sudden retreat, but was smilingly bidden to first consider for a moment the operations of four workmen close at hand, two of whom, kneeling upon the ground, grasped the handles of two little presses, very like aggravated bullet-moulds, while the other two, bringing little masses of glass upon the ends of their blow-sticks and dropping them carefully into the necks of the moulds, proceeded to blow through the pipe until the air forced out a quantity of the glass in the form of a great bubble at the top of the mould. The pressure from within increasing still more, this bubble necessarily burst with a smart snap, and thus caused the explosive sounds above referred to. The two casters then scraped away the debris at the top with a bit of stick, and, opening their moulds, disclosed in one a pretty little essence-bottle, which a sharp boy in waiting immediately snapped up on the end of a long fork, where he had already spitted about a dozen more, and carried them away to the leer.

"But what are you casting?" asked Madame, puzzled, as the other workman opened his mould and poked its contents out upon a bit of board held ready by another sharp boy.

"Little inks, Ma'am," was the laconic reply; and looking more narrowly at the tiny object, it proved to be one of the small portable inkstands used in writing-desks.

More explosions at a little distance, and two more men were found to be casting, in the same manner, small bottles of opaque white glass, resembling china, a quality produced by an admixture of bone-dust in the frit. These are the bottles dear to manufacturers of pomades, hair-oils, and various cosmetics, and Miselle turned round a cool one lying upon the ground, half-expecting to find a flourishing advertisement of a newly discovered Fontaine d'Or upon its back. She did not find it, but espied instead two pretty little fellows in a corner just beyond, one of whom might be twelve and his curly-haired junior not more than ten years old, who were gravely engaged in blowing chimneys for kerosene lamps, and quite successfully too, as a large box behind their bench amply proved,—these alone of all the articles mentioned not requiring to be passed through the leer.

A little farther on, a workman, loading his pontil, by repeated dippings, with a large quantity of glass, dropped the lump into an open basin hollowed in the surface of one of the iron tables. It was here suffered to cool for some moments, and then, by means of a pontil tipped with molten glass, carried away to be fire-polished.

This was a lens, such as are used to increase the light in ships' cabins, staterooms, etc. Another and coarser quality, not lenses, but simple disks of greenish glass, about four inches in thickness by twelve in diameter, were stacked ready for removal at a short distance, and the whole association made Miselle so intolerably sea-sick that she sidled away to watch the manufacture of some decanters, "sech as is used in bar-rooms, mostly, Ma'am," as the principal workman confided to her. These were first moulded in the shape of great tumblers with an excessively ugly pattern printed on the sides, then softened in a glory-hole, and brought to a workman, who, by means of plyers and battledoor, elongated and shaped the neck, leaving a queer, ragged lip at the top. The decanter was then passed to Miselle's confidant, who struck off this lip with the edge of his plyers. An attendant then presented to him a lump of melted glass on the end of his pontil, and the workman, deftly twisting it round the neck of his decanter, clipped it off with a pair of scissors, and proceeded to smooth and shape it by means of the plyers.

These decanters were probably to be used in conjunction with some Gothic goblets, whose press stood in the immediate vicinity. These were greenish in color, thick and unwieldly in shape, and ornamented with alternate panels of vertical and horizontal stripes.

Miselle was still lost in contemplation of these goblets when Monsieur approached.

"No," exclaimed she, pointing at them,—"no true patriot should congratulate his countrymen upon the plenitude of such articles as that! Far better for the national growth in art that we should all revert to clam-shells!"

"Come, then, and see if we cannot find something more to your fancy in the cutting-room," laughed Monsieur; and Miselle willingly followed through the green yard, and up some stairs to a sunny chamber, or rather hall, lined on either hand with a row of busy workmen, each seated behind a whirring wheel, to which he held the surface of whatever article he was engaged in cutting, or rather grinding.

These wheels were arranged in a progressive order. The first were of stone or iron, fed with sand and water, which trickled slowly down upon them from a trough overhead. These rapidly cut away the surface of glass presented to them, leaving it rough and opaque. The article was next presented to a smooth grindstone, that removed the roughness, and left the appearance of fine ground glass.

The next process, called polishing, was effected upon a wooden wheel, fed with pumice or rotten-stone and water, and the final touch was given by another wooden wheel, and a preparation of tin and lead called putty-powder.

The opacity was now entirely removed, and the facets cut upon the wine-glass Miselle had principally watched in its progress shone with the clear and polished brilliancy characteristic of the finest quality of cut glass.

For very nice work, such as the polishing of chandelier-drops, and articles of that sort, a leaden wheel, fed with fine rotten-stone and water, is employed; but on the occasion referred to, no work of this nature being in hand, these wheels were not used.

Other wheels, consisting of a simple disk of iron, not unlike a circular saw without any teeth, were used for cutting those narrow vertical lines, technically known as fingering, familiar to those so happy as to have had careful grandmothers, and to have inherited their decanters and wine-glasses. The revival of this style, like that of the rich old pattern in plate known as the "Mayflower," is a compliment just now paid by the present generation to the taste of the past, and Miselle was shown some beautiful specimens of the "latest mode, Ma'am," that awoke melancholy reminiscences of the shattered idols of her youth.

"Here are our friends, the ruby lampshades, again," remarked Optima.

"And now you will see how the transparent figures are made upon them," suggested Cicerone, pointing to a workman, who, with a pile of the ruby-coated globes beside him, was painting circles upon one of them with some yellowish pigment. The globe then being held to one of the rough wheels, the thin shell of red glass within these circles was ground away, leaving it white, but opaque. The globe then passed through the processes of smooth grinding and polishing, above described, until the pattern was finally developed in clear transparent medallions.

A very beautiful article in colored glass was a Hock decanter of an exquisite antique pattern in green glass, wreathed with a grape-vine, whose leaves and stems were transparent, while the clusters of grapes were left opaque by the omission of the polishing process.

At the end of the noisy cutting-room was a small chamber, hardly more than a closet, called the engraving-room, and bearing the same relation to the former as the crypt where the cellarer jealously stores his Tokay for the palate of a Kaiser holds to the acres of arches where lies the vin ordinaire.

Here, in the full light of ample windows, before a high bench, over which revolved with incredible rapidity a half-dozen small copper disks fed with fine emery and oil, stood as many earnest-looking men, not artisans, but artists, each of whom, vaguely guided by a design lightly sketched upon the article under his hands, was developing it with an ease and skill really beautiful to contemplate. Intricate arabesques, single flowers of perfect grace, or rare groups of bloom, piles of fruit, or spirited animal-life, all grew between the whirring copper wheel and the nice hand, whose slightest turn or pressure had a meaning and a just result.

Miselle watched the engraving of an intricate cipher beneath the fantastic crest of some wealthy epicurean, who had ordered a complete dessert-service of such charming forms and graceful designs that envy of his taste, if not of his possessions, became a positive duty.

"Is there any limit to the range of your subjects?" asked Miselle, as the artist added the last graceful curve to the griffin's tail, and contemplated his finished work with quiet complacency.

"There may be, but I never found it. Whatever a pencil can draw this wheel can cut," said he, with such a smile as Gottschalk might assume in answering the query as to whether the score could be written that he could not render.

Having now witnessed all the processes of glass-manufacture to be seen at this time and place,[26] the party were conducted to the show-room, passing on the way through a room where a number of young women were engaged in painting and gilding vases, spoon-holders, lamps, and various other articles in plain and colored glass. The colors used showed, for the most part, but a very faint resemblance to the tints they were intended to produce, and the gold appeared like a dingy brown paint; but, as was explained by Cicerone, these-colors were to be fixed by burning, or rather melting them into the surface of the glass, and this process would at the same time evolve their true colors and brilliancy, both of paint and gilding.

In the next room to this, several workmen were busy in fitting the metal trimmings to such articles as lamps, lanterns, castors, molasses-pitchers, and the like.

One chirruping old man insisted upon mounting an immensely ugly blue and yellow lamp upon a brass foot for the edification of his visitors, and when this was over, exhibited some opaque white glass stands for other lamps, which, as he fondly remarked, "would be took for marble anyw'eres."

The show-room was a long, airy hall, with a row of tables on either hand, covered with glass, whose icy glitter and lack of color gave a deliciously cool aspect to the whole place. Glass in every graceful form and design, some heavy and crystalline, enriched with ornate workmanship by cutter and engraver, some delicate and fragile as a soap-bubble; hock-glasses as green and lucent as sea-water, and with an edge not too thick to part the lips of Titania; glasses of amber, that should turn pale Johannisberger to the true vino d'oro; glasses of glowing ruby tint, than which Bohemia sends us nothing finer; vases and goblets as rare in form and wrought as skilfully as those two cups that Nero bought for six thousand sestertii; medallions bearing in intaglio portraits of distinguished men as clearly and unmistakably cut as on coin or cameo; whole services of glass, more beautiful and almost as valuable as services of plate; plumes of spun glass as fine and sheeny as softest silk; toys and scientific playthings; objects of wonder, admiration, and curiosity: all these were to be seen crowded upon these long, white tables in the cool hall, where the wind, sweeping gently through, brought the smell of the rising tide, and the sound of its waves upon the shore.

Here, too, was a man who knew the story, not only of the glass lying beneath his hand to-day, but of all the glass the world has known, from the colored beads inhumed with the Pharaonic princesses to the ruby salver he so fondly fingered as he talked.

He spoke of the glazed windows of Pompeii; of the "excellent portrait" of the Emperor Constantine VII. painted, A. D. 949, upon a church-window. He recounted the ancient story of the Phoenicians, who, landing at the mouth of the river, brought from their ships lumps of soda, and, laying them upon the sand as a support for their dinner-pot, found when they had done lumps of glass among the ashes, and so rediscovered the lost art of glass-making; but to this he added, with a dubious smile,—

"Fire must have been hotter in those days than now. We could never melt sand in that fashion now."

Then coming to window-glass, he clearly described the process of its manufacture, although confessing he had never been engaged in it, and from this Miselle, with a word, launched him into the glowing sea of mediaeval painted windows, and the wellnigh forgotten glories of their manufacture.

"There is hardly one of them left that I have not seen," said he,—"from the old heathen temples of the East, that the Christians converted to their own use, and, while they burned the idols, spared the windows, which they had sense to remember they could never reproduce, to the gloomy purple-shadowed things they put up so much in England and the United States at the present day, forgetting, as it would seem, that the first idea of a window is to let the light through.

"But one of the finest works of modern times was the great tournament-window, first exhibited in London in 1820. I was a young fellow then, hardly twenty indeed, and with very little money to spare for sight-seeing. But from the day I first heard of it, until five years afterward, when I saw it, I never wavered in my determination to go abroad and look at that window, as well as all the others I had heard so much of.

"It was a beautiful thing really, Ma'am, measuring eighteen by twenty-four feet, and made up of three hundred and fifty pieces of glass set in metal astragals, so cleverly worked into the shadows that the whole affair appeared like one piece. It represented the passage-of-arms between Henry VIII., of England, and Francis I., of France, held at Ardres, June 25, 1520, and of the hundred figures shown, over forty were portraits. Among these were the two queens, Katharine of England, and Claude of France, Anne Boleyn, and Cardinal Wolsey, with a great many other distinguished persons."

"And this window, where is it now?" asked Optima.

"Destroyed by fire, June 30, 1832," he replied, with the mournful awe of one giving the date of some terrible human disaster.

"How many glass-factories like this are there in the country?" asked Monsieur, reverting to the practical view of the matter under consideration.

"Flint-glass works, Sir? There are three in South Boston, two in East Cambridge, and one here in Sandwich. That is for Massachusetts alone. Then there are two in Brooklyn, New York, one in Jersey City, and two in Philadelphia. These are all flint-glass, you understand; the principal window-glass factories are in the southern part of New Jersey, and in Pittsfield, Pennsylvania. Then there is a flourishing plate-glass factory in Lenox, in this State, and another in New York. But the old Bay State, Sir, has led the van in this enterprise ever since 1780, when Robert Hewes, of Boston, opened the first glass-factory in the country at Temple, New Hampshire. His workmen were all Hessians or Wallachians who had deserted from the British army. They had learned the art in their own country, and were the best men he could have found for his purpose at that time; but they were a disorderly set, and, finally, one of the furnace-men got drunk, and burnt down the works in the night. Hewes presented a circular plate of glass, as a specimen of his manufacture, to Harvard College, and I believe they have it now. It was a very good article of glass, although a little greenish in color, and not quite so clear as we get it now.

"After he was burnt out, one Lint set up some glass-works in Boston about 1800. They were not successful for a while, but about 1802 or 1803 they got fairly started, and have kept ahead ever since."

"Four o'clock, my dear," remarked Madame, softly, to Monsieur, and Cicerone, who had fidgeted awfully all through the little lecture, brightened perceptibly, and rubbed his hands contentedly, as, with many thanks to the courteous superintendent, and a last glance at the glittering wonders of his charge, the party descended once more to the green yard, and crossed it to the principal gate.

"One minute, Optima. Do come and look at the engine in here!" cried Miselle, dragging her reluctant friend into a long, narrow den, almost filled by a black monster with shining brass ornaments, who slid his iron arms backward and forward, backward and forward, in a steady, remorseless manner, highly suggestive of what he would do, had he fists at the end of them, and all the world within reach of their swing. A sickish smell of heated oil pervaded the apartment, although everything was as clean and bright as hands could make it.

With the foolish daring characteristic of her sex, Miselle stole out a finger to touch the remorseless arm as it shot outward, but Optima detected and arrested the movement, with a grave "For shame!" and at the same moment a man suddenly emerged from behind the body of the monster, and, approaching the venturous intruder, bawled in her ear,—

"'Twould take off a man's head, Miss, as easy as a pipe-stem!"

Miselle nodded, without attempting a defence, and the man added presently,—

"'Undred 'oss power, Miss. Drives all the works."

"Do come out, Miselle! I shall go crazy in another minute!" screamed Optima; and the two young women hastened to overtake the rest of the party, who were already in the street.

Gypsy and Fanny, who had better used their four hours of rest than in exploring glass-works, stood ready-harnessed before the door of the Central Hotel when the sight-seers returned thither, and in a few moments the ladies were handed to their seats, Monsieur gathered up the reins, and Tom having "given them their heads," the spirited little nags tossed the precious gifts into the air, and took the road at a pace that needed only moderating to make it the perfection of exhilarating motion.

Words are all very well in their way, but they fail wofully when a person has really anything to say.

For instance, where are the phrases to describe that sunset sky, so clear and blue overhead that one felt it was only the scant range of human vision that hid the unveiled heavenly glories beyond the arch,—so gorgeous at the horizon, where it met the opalescent sea,—so rosy in the east, where, like a great golden shield, stood the moon gazing across the world triumphantly at the sinking sun,—the dewy freshness of the woods, where lingered the intoxicating perfumes distilled by the blazing noontide from fir and spruce,—the jubilant chorus of birds, dying strain by strain, until the melancholy whippoorwill grieved alone in his woodland solitude?

On by the lonely farms and unlighted cabins, by the bare, bleak moors, where the night-wind came rolling softly up to look at the travellers,—on till the low, broad sea opened out the view, and came sobbing up on the beach, wailing at its own cruel deeds,—on beneath the cloudless night, upon whose front blazed Orion and the Pleiades,—on until the scene had wrought its charm, and the frequent speech fell to scattered words, to silent thought, to passionate feeling, where swelling heart and dim eyes alone uttered the soul's response to earth's perfect beauty, God's perfect goodness.

And so ever on, until the twinkling lights in the curve of the bay showed where the weary Pilgrims had set foot on shore, in that black, bitter December weather, and planted the seed that has borne blossoms and fruits unnumbered, and shall yet bear more and more for centuries to come.

And through the quiet suburb, and across the brook, and up the village-street, to the happy and hospitable home, where brilliant lights and a sparkling tea-service waited to welcome the weary, but well-pleased voyageurs.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] "Cullet" is the waste of the glass-room. The superfluous material taken up on the pontil, and the shards of articles broken in process of manufacture. The ingenious reader will thus interpret the heading of this paper.

[26] It is proper to state that Miselle subsequently visited the New-England Glass Company's Works in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, and, finding the method of manufacture nearly identical with that at Sandwich, has, for convenience' sake, incorporated her observations there with this account of her visit to the latter place.



WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM?

A STORY IN TWO PARTS.

PART II.

Gentleman Bill, full of confidence in his powers of persuasion, advances, to add the weight of his respectability to his parent's remonstrance.

"Good morning, Mr. Frisbie,"—politely lifting his hat.

"Hey?" says Frisbie, sarcastic.—"Look at his insolence, Stephen!"

"I sincerely trust, Sir," begins Bill, "that you will reconsider your determination, Sir"——

"Shall I fetch him a cut with the hosswhip?" whispers Stephen, loud enough for the stalwart young black to hear.

"You can fetch him a cut with the hosswhip, if you like," Bill answers for Mr. Frisbie, with fire blazing upon his polite face. "But, Sir, in case you do, Sir, I shall take it upon myself to teach you better manners than to insult a gentleman conferring with your master, Sir!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" roared Mr. Frisbie. "You've got it, Stephen!"

The whip trembled in Stephen's angry hand, but the strapping young negro looked so cool and wicked, standing there, that he wisely forbore to strike.

"I am sure, Sir," Bill addresses the landlord, "you are too humane a person"——

"No, I a'n't," says the florid Frisbie. "I know what you're going to say; but it's no use. You can't work upon my feelings; I a'n't one of your soft kind.—Drive up to the door, Stephen."

Stephen is very glad to start the horse suddenly and graze Gentleman Bill's knee with the wheel-hub. Bill steps back a pace, and follows him with the smiting look of one who treasures up wrath. You'd better be careful, Stephen, let me tell you!

Joe stands holding the door open, and Mr. Frisbie looks in. There, to his astonishment, he sees the women washing clothes as unconcernedly as if nothing unusual was about to occur. He jumps to the ground, heated with passion.

"Ho, here!" he shouts in at the door; "don't you see the house is coming down?"

Upon which the deaf old grandfather rises in his corner, and pulls off his cap, with the usual salutation, "Sarvant, Sah," etc., and sitting down again, relapses into a doze immediately.

Frisbie is furious. "What you 'bout here?" he cries, in an alarming voice.

"Bless you, Sir," answers the old woman, over a tub, "don't you see? We's doon' a little washin', Sir. Didn't you never see nobody wash afore?" And she proceeds with her rubbing.

"The house will be tumbling on you in ten minutes!"

"You think so? Now I don't, Mr. Frisbie! This 'ere house a'n't gwine to tumble down this mornin', I know. The Lord 'll look out for that, I guess. Look o' these 'ere childern! look o' me! look o' my ole father there, more'n a hunderd year ole! What's a-gwine to 'come on us all, if you pull the house down? Can't git another right away; no team to tote our things off with; an' how 'n the world we can do 'thout no house this winter I can't see. So I've jes' concluded to trust the Lord, an' git out my washin'." Rub, rub, rub!

Frisbie grows purple. "Are you fools?" he inquires.

"Yes, I am! I'm Fessenden's." And the honest, staring youth comes forward to see what is wanted.

This unexpected response rather pricks the wind-bag of the man's zeal. He looks curiously at the boy, who follows him out of the house.

"Stephen, did you ever see that fellow before?"

"Yes, Sir; he's the one come to our house Saturday night, and I showed round to the Judge's."

"Are you the fellow?"

"Yes," says Fessenden's. "There wouldn't any of you let me into your houses, neither!"

"Wouldn't the people I sent you to let you in?"

"No!"

"Hear that, Stephen! your philanthropical Gingerford!—And what did you do?"

"I didn't do nothin',—only laid down to die, I did."

"But you didn't die, did you?"

"No! This man he come along, and brought me here."

"Here? to the niggers?"

"Yes! You wouldn't have me, so they took me, and dried me, and fed me,—good folks, niggers!" Fessenden's bore this simple testimony.

What is it makes the Frisbie color heighten so? Is it Gentleman Bill's quiet smile, as he stands by and hears this conversation?

"And you have been here ever since?" says the man, in a humbler key, and with a milder look, than before.

"Yes! It's a r'al good place!" says the youth.

"But a'n't you ashamed to live with niggers?"

"Ashamed? What for? Nobody else was good to me. But they was good to me. I a'n't ashamed."

The Frisbie color heightens more and more. He looks at that wretched dwelling,—he glances aside at Mr. Williams, that coal-black Christian, of sad and resigned demeanor, waiting ruefully to see the roof torn off,—the only roof that had afforded shelter to the perishing outcast. Mr. Frisbie is not one of the "soft kind," but he feels the prick of conscience in his heart.

"Why didn't you go to the poor-house? Didn't anybody tell you to?"

"Yes, that's what they said. But nobody showed me the way, and I couldn't find it."

"Where did you come from? Who are you?"

"Fessenden's."

"Who is Fessenden?"

"The man that owns me. But he whipped me and shet me up, and I wouldn't stay."

"Where does he live?"

"Don't know. Away off."

"You'd better go back to him, hadn't you?"

"No! I like these folks. Best folks I ever seen!" avers the earnest youth.

Flush and confusion are in the rich man's face. He turns up an uneasy glance at Adsly's men, already on the roof; then coughs, and says to Stephen,—

"This is interesting!"

"Very," says Stephen.

"Don't you remember, I was going to make some provision for this fellow,—I'd have seen him safe in the almshouse, if nothing more,—but you suggested Gingerford's."

"I supposed Gingerford would be delighted to take him in," grins Stephen.

"Instead of that, he turns him out in the storm! Did you ever hear of such sham philanthropy? By George!" cries Frisbie, in his indignation against the Judge, "there's more real philanthropy in these niggers"——checking himself, and glancing again at the workmen on the roof.

"What's philanthropy?" asks Fessenden's. "Is that what you're tearin' their house down for? I'm sorry!"

Frisbie is flustered. He is ashamed of appearing "soft." He wishes heartily to be well rid of the niggers. But something in his own heart rebels against the course he has taken to eject them.

"Just hold on there a minute, Adsly!"

"Ay, ay!" says Adsly. And the work stops.

"Now what do I do this for?" exclaims Frisbie, vexed at himself the instant he has spoken. And he frowns, and blows his nose furiously. "It's because I am too good-natured, altogether!"

"No, no, Sir,—I beg your pardon!" says Mr. Williams, his heart all aglow with gratitude. "To be kind and merciful to the poor, that isn't to be too good-natured, Sir!"

"Well, well! I a'n't one of your milk-and-water sort. Look at such a man as Gingerford, for example! But I guess, come case in hand, you'll find as much genuine humanity in me, Adsly, as in them that profess so much. Wait till to-morrow before you knock the old shell to pieces. I'll give 'em another day. And in the mean time, boy," turning to Fessenden's, "you must find you another home. Either go back to your guardian, or I'll send you over to the almshouse. These people can't keep you, for they'll have no house in these parts to keep themselves in."

"So?" says Fessenden's. "They kep' me when they had a house, and I'll stay with them when they haven't got any."

Something in the case of this unfortunate stripling interested Frisbie. His devotion to his new friends was so sincere, and so simply expressed, that the robust, well-fed man was almost touched by it.

"I vow, it's a queer case, Stephen! What do you think of it?"

"I think"——said the joker.

"What do you think? Out with it!"

"You own that vacant lot opposite Gingerford's?"

"Yes; what of that?"

"I think, then, instead of pulling the house down, I'd just move it over there, niggers and all"——

"And set it opposite the Judge's!" exclaims Frisbie, catching gleefully at the idea.

"Exactly," says Stephen; "and give him enough of niggers for one while."

"I'll do it!—Adsly! Adsly! See here, Adsly! Do you suppose this old box can be moved?"

"I guess so. 'T a'n't very large. Ruther think the frame'll hold together."

"Will you undertake the job?"

"Wal, I never moved a house. There's Cap'en Slade, he moves houses. He's got all the tackle for it, and I ha'n't. I suppose I can git him, if you want me to see to the job."

Agreed! It did not take Frisbie long to decide. It was such a tremendous joke! A nest of niggers under the dainty Gingerford nose! ho, ho! Whip up, Stephen! And the red and puffy face, redder and puffier still with immense fun, rode off.

Adsly and his men disappeared also, to return with Cap'en Slade and his tackle on the morrow. Then Joe began to dance and scream like a little devil.

"Have a ride! have a ride! Oh, mammy! they're gunter snake th' ole house through the village to-morrer, an' we're all gunter have a ride! free gratis for nothin'! 'thout payin' for 't neither! A'n't we, Bill?"

Mrs. Williams sits right down, overcome by the surprise.

"Now I want to know if that 'ere 's so!"

"That's what't looks like now," says Mr. Williams. "We're goin' to be sot opposite Mr. Gingerford's."

"'Ristocratic!" cries Joe, putting on airs. "That's what'll tickle Bill!"

"Oh, laws!" exclaims Mrs. Williams, with humorous sadness,—"what a show th' ole cabin'll make, stuck down there 'mongst all them fine housen!"

"I don't know's I quite like the notion," says her husband, with a good-natured expansion of his serious features. "I'm 'fraid we sha'n't be welcome neighbors down there. 'T a'n't so much out o' kindness to us as it is out o' spite to the Gingerfords, that the house is to be moved instid o' tore down."

"That's the glory of the Lord! Even the wrath of man shall praise Him!" utters the old grandmother, devoutly.

"Won't it be jimmy?" crows Joe. "He's a jolly ole brick, that Frisbie! I'm a-gunter set straddle on the ridge-pole, an' carry a flag. Hooray!"

"I consider that the situation will be very much preferable to this," observes Gentleman Bill, polishing his hat with his coat-sleeve. "Better quarter of the town; more central; eligible locality for establishing a tailor-shop."

"Legible comicality for stablin' a shailor-top!" stammers Joe, mimicking his brother.

Upon which Bill—as he sometimes did, when excited—elapsed into the vulgar, but expressive idiom of the family. "Shet yer head, can't ye?" And he lifted a hand, with intent to clap it smartly upon the part the occlusion of which was desirable.

Joe shrieked, and fled.

"No quarrellin' on a 'casion like this!" interposes the old woman, covering the boy's retreat. "This 'ere's a time for joy and thanks, an' nuffin' else. Bless the Lord, I knowed He'd keep an eye on to th' ole house. Didn't I tell ye that boy'd bring us good luck? It's all on his account the house a'n't tore down, an' I consider it a mighty Providence from fust to last. Wasn't I right, when I said I guessed I'd have faith, an' git the washin' out? Bless the Lord, I could cry!"

And cry she did, with a fulness of heart which, I think, might possibly have convinced even the jocund Frisbie that there was something better than an old, worn-out, spiteful jest in the resolution he had taken to have the house moved, instead of razed.

And now the deaf old patriarch in the corner-became suddenly aware that something exciting was going forward; but being unable clearly to comprehend what, and chancing to see Fessenden's coming in, he gave expression to his exuberant emotions by rising, and shaking the lad's passive hand, with the usual highly polite salutation.

"Tell him we're all a-gunter have a ride," said Joe.

But as Fessenden's couldn't tell him loud enough, Joe screamed the news.

"Say?" asked the old man, raising a feeble hand to his ear, and stooping and smiling.

"Put th' ole house on wheels, an' dror it!" shrieked Joe.

"Yes, yes!" chuckled the old man. "I remember! Six hills in a row. Busters!"—looking wonderfully knowing, and, with feeble forefinger raised, nodding and winking at his great-grandchild,—as it were across the slim gulf of a hundred years which divided the gleeful boyhood of Joe from the second childhood of the ancient dreamer.

The next day came Adsly and his men again, with Cap'en Slade and his tackle, and several yokes of oxen with drivers. Levers and screws moved the house from its foundations, and it was launched upon rollers. Then, progress! Then, sensation in Timberville! Some said it was Noah's ark, sailing down the street. The household furniture of the patriarch was mostly left on board the antique craft, but Noah and his family followed on foot. They took their live stock with them,—cow and calf, and poultry and pig. Joe and his great-grandfather carried each a pair of pullets, in their hands. Gentleman Bill drove the pig, with a rope tied to his (piggy's) leg. Mr. Williams transported more poultry,—turkeys and hens, in two great flopping clusters, slung over his shoulder, with their heads down. The women bore crockery and other frangible articles, and helped Fessenden's drive the cow. A picturesque procession, not noiseless! The bosses shouted to the men, the drivers shouted to the oxen, loud groaned the beams of the ark, the cow lowed, the calf bawled, great was the squawking and squealing!

Gentleman Bill was sick of the business before they had gone half-way. He wished he had stayed in the shop, instead of coming over to help the family, and make himself ridiculous. There was not much pleasure in driving that stout young porker. Many a sharp jerk lamed the hand that held the rope that restrained the leg that piggy wanted to run with. Besides, (as I believe swine and some other folks invariably do under the like circumstances,) piggy always tried to run in the wrong direction. To add to Gentleman Bill's annoyance, spectators soon became numerous, and witty suggestions were not wanting.

"Take him up in your arms," said somebody.

"Take advantage of his contrariness, and try to drive him 't other way," said somebody else.

"Ride him," proposed a third.

"Make a whistle of his tail, an' blow it, an' he'll foller ye!" screamed a bright school-boy.

"Stick some of yer tailor's needles into him!" "Sew him up in a sack, and shoulder him!" "Take up his hind-legs, and push him like a wheelbarrer!" And so forth, and so forth, till Bill was in a fearful sweat and rage, partly with the pig, but chiefly with the uncivil multitude.

"Ruther carry me on your back, some rainy night, hadn't ye?" said Fessenden's, in all simplicity, perceiving his distress.

"You didn't excruciate my wrist so like time!" groaned Bill. And what was more, darkness covered that other memorable journey.

As for Joe, he liked it. Though he was not allowed to ride the ridge-pole and wave a flag through the village, as he proposed, he had plenty of fun on foot. He went swinging his chickens, and frequently pinching them to make them musical. The laughter of the lookers-on didn't trouble him in the least; for he could laugh louder than any. But his sisters were ashamed, and Mr. Williams looked grave; for they were, actually, human! and I suppose they didn't like to be jeered at, and called a swarm of niggers, any more than you or I would.

So the journey was accomplished; and the stupendous joke of Frisbie's was achieved. Conceive Mrs. Gingerford's wonder, when she beheld the ark approaching! Fancy her feelings, when she saw it towed up and moored in front of her own door,—the whole tribe of Noah, lowing cow, bawling calf, squawking poultry, and squealing pig, and so forth, and so forth, accompanying! This, then, was the meaning of the masons at work over there since yesterday. They had been preparing the new foundations on which the old house was to rest. So the stunning truth broke upon her: niggers for neighbors! What had she done to merit such a dispensation?

What done, unhappy lady? Your own act has drawn down upon you this retribution. You yourself have done quite as much towards bringing that queer craft along-side as yonder panting and lolling oxen. They are but the brute instruments, while you have been a moral agent in the matter. One word, uttered by you three nights ago, has had the terrible magic in it to summon forth from the mysterious womb of events this extraordinary procession. Had but a different word been spoken, it would have proved equally magical, though we might never have known it: that breath by your delicate lips would have blown back these horrible shadows; and instead of all this din and confusion of house-hauling, we should have had silence this day in the streets of Timberville. You don't see it? In plain phrase, then, understand: you took not in the stranger at your gate; but he found refuge with these blacks; and because they showed mercy unto him, the sword of Frisbie's wrath was turned aside from them, and, edged by Stephen's witty jest, directed against you and yours. Hence this interesting scene which you look down upon from your windows, at the beautiful hour of sunset, which you love. And, oh, to think of it! between your chamber and those golden sunsets that negro hut and those negroes will always be henceforth!

Now don't you wish; Madam, you had had compassion on the wayfarer? But we will not mock at your calamity. You did precisely what any of us would have been only too apt to do in your place. You told the simple truth, when you said you didn't want the ragged wretch in your house. And what person of refinement, I'd like to know, would have wanted him? For, say what you will, it is a most disagreeable thing to admit downright dirty vagabonds into our elegant dwellings. And dangerous, besides; for they might murder us in the night,—or steal something! Oh, we fastidious and fearful! where is our charity? where is the heart of trust? There was of old a Divine Man, who had not where to lay his head,—whom the wise of those days scoffed at as a crazy fellow,—whom respectable people shunned,—who made himself the companion of the poor, the comforter of the distressed, the helper of those in trouble, and the healer of diseases;—who shrank neither from the man or woman of sin, nor from the loathsome leper, nor from sorrow and death for our sakes,—whose gospel we now profess to live by, and——

But let us not be "soft." We are reasonably Christian, we hope; and it shows low breeding to be ultra. (Was the Carpenter's Son low-bred?)

And now the Judge rides home in the dusk of the December day. It is still light enough, however, for him to see that Frisbie's vacant lot has been made an Ararat of; and he could hear the Noachian noises, were it ever so dark. The awful jest bursts upon him; he hears the screaming of the bomb-shell, then the explosion. But the mind of this man is (so to speak) casemated. It is a shock,—but he never once loses his self-possession. His quick perception detects Friend Frisbie behind the gun; and he smiles with his intelligent, fine-cut face. Shall malice have the pleasure of knowing that the shot has told? Our orator is too sagacious for that. There is never any use in being angry: that is one of his maxims. Therefore, if he feels any chagrin, he will smother it. If there is a storm within, the world shall see only the rainbow, that radiant smile of his. Cool is Gingerford! He has seized the subject instantly, and calculated all its bearings. He is a man to make the best of it; and even the bitterness which is in it shall, if possible, bear him some wholesome drink. To school his mind to patience,—to practise daily the philanthropy he teaches,—this will be much; and already his heart is humbled and warmed. And who knows,—for, with all his sincerity and aspiration, he has an eye to temporal uses,—who knows but this stumbling-block an enemy has placed in his way may prove the stepping-stone of his ambition?

"What is all this, James?" he inquires of his son, who comes out to the gate to meet him.

"Frisbie's meanness!" says the young man, almost choking. "And the whole town is laughing at us!"

"Laughing at us? What have we done?" mildly answers the parent. "I tell you what, James,—they sha'n't laugh at us long. We can live so as to compel them to reverence us; and if there is any ridicule attached to the affair, it will soon rest where it belongs."

"Such a sty stuck right down under our noses!" muttered the mortified James.

"We will make of it an ornament," retorts the Judge, with mounting spirits. "Come with me,"—taking the youth's arm. "My son, call no human habitation a sty. These people are our brothers, and we will show them the kindness of brethren."

A servant receives the horse, and Gingerford and his son cross the street.

"Good evening, Friend Williams! So you have concluded to come and live neighbor to us, have you?"

Friend Williams was at the end of the house, occupied in improvising a cowshed under an old apple-tree. Piggy was already tied to the trunk of the tree, and the hens and turkeys were noisily selecting their roosts in the boughs. At sight of the Judge, whose displeasure he feared, the negro was embarrassed, and hardly knew what to say. But the pleasant greeting of the silver-toned voice reassured him, and he stopped his work to frame his candid, respectful answer.

"It was Mr. Frisbie that concluded. All I had to do was to go with the house wherever he chose to move it."

"Well, he might have done much worse by you. You have a nice landlord, a nice landlord, Mr. Williams. Mr. Frisbie is a very fine man."

It was Gingerford's practice to speak well of everybody with whom he had any personal relations, and especially well of his enemies; because, as he used to say to his son, evil words commonly do more harm to him who utters them than to those they are designed to injure, while fair and good words are easily spoken, and are the praise of their author, if of nobody else: for, if the subject of them is a bad man, they will not be accepted as literally true by any one that knows him, but, on the contrary, they will be set down to the credit of your good-nature,—or who knows but they may become coals of fire upon the head of your enemy, and convert him into a friend?

James had now an opportunity to test the truth of these observations. Was Mr. Williams convinced that Frisbie was a nice landlord and a fine man? By no means. But that Judge Gingerford was a fine man, and a charitable, he believed more firmly than ever. Then there was Stephen standing by,—having, no doubt, been sent by his master to observe the chagrin of the Gingerfords, and to bring back the report thereof; who, when he heard the Judge's words, looked surprised and abashed, and presently stole away, himself discomfited.

"I pray the Lord," said Mr. Williams, humbly and heartily, "you won't consider us troublesome neighbors."

"I hope not," replied the Judge; "and why should I? You have a good, honest reputation, Friend Williams; and I hear that you are a peaceable and industrious family. We ought to be able to serve each other in many ways. What can I do for you, to begin with? Wouldn't you like to turn your cow and calf into my yard?"

"Thank you a thousand times,—if I can, just as well as not," said the grateful negro. "We had to tear down the shed and pig-pen when we moved the house, and I ha'n't had time to set 'em up again."

"And I imagine you have had enough to do, for one day. Let your children drive the creatures through the gate yonder; my man will show them the shed. Are you a good gardener, Mr. Williams?"

"Wal, I've done consid'able at that sort of work, Sir."

"I'm glad of that. I have to hire a good deal of gardening done. I see we are going to be very much obliged to your landlord for bringing us so near together. And this is your father?"

"My grandfather, Sir," said Mr. Williams.

"Your grandfather? I must shake hands with him."

"Sarvant, Sah," said the old man, cap off, bowing and smiling there in the December twilight.

"He's deaf as can be," said Mr. Williams; "you'll have to talk loud, to make him hear. He's more 'n a hunderd year old."

"You astonish me!" exclaimed the Judge. "A very remarkable old person! I should delight to converse with him,—to know what his thoughts are in these new times, and what his memories are of the past, which, I suppose, is even now more familiar to his mind than the objects of to-day. God bless you, my venerable friend!" shaking hands a second time with the ancient black, and speaking in a loud voice.

"Tankee, Sah,—very kind," smiled the flattered old man. "Sarvant, Sah."

"'Tis you who are kind, to take notice of young fellows like me," pleasantly replied the Judge.—"Well, good evening, friends. I shall always be glad to know if there is anything I can do for you. Ha! what is this?"

It was the cow and calf coming back again, followed by Joe and Fessenden's.

"Gorry!" cried Joe,—"wa'n't that man mad? Thought he'd bite th' ole cow's tail off!"

"What man? My man?"

"Yes," said honest Fessenden's; "he said he'd be damned if he'd have a nigger's critters along with his'n!"

"Then we'll afford him an early opportunity to be damned," observed the Judge. "Drive them back again. I'll go with you.—By the way, Mr. Williams,"—Gingerford saw his man approaching, and spoke loud enough for him to hear and understand,—"are you accustomed to taking care of horses? I may find it necessary to employ some one before long."

"Wal, yes, Sir; I'm tol'able handy about a stable," replied the negro.

"Hollo, there!" called the man, somewhat sullenly, "drive that cow back here! Why didn't you tell me 't was the boss's orders?"

"Did tell him so; and he said as how I lied," said Joe,—driving the animals back again triumphantly.

The Judge departed with his son,—a thoughtful and aspiring youth, who pondered deeply what he had seen and heard, as he walked by his father's side. And Mr. Williams, greatly relieved and gratified by the interview, hastened to relate to his family the good news. And the praises of Gingerford were on all their tongues, and in their prayers that night he was not forgotten.

Three days after, the Judge's man was dismissed from his place, in consequence of difficulties originating in the affair of the cow. The Judge had sought an early opportunity to converse with him on the subject.

"A negro's cow," said he, "is as good as anybody's cow; and I consider Mr. Williams as good a man as you are."

The white coachman couldn't stand that; and the result was that the Gingerfords had a black coachman in a few days. The situation was offered to Mr. Williams, and very glad he was to accept it.

Thus the wrath of man continued to work the welfare of these humble Christians. It is reasonable to doubt whether the Judge was at heart delighted with his new neighbors; and jolly Mr. Frisbie enjoyed the joke somewhat less, I suspect, than he anticipated. One party enjoyed it, nevertheless. It was a serious and solid satisfaction to the Williams family. No member of which, with the exception, perhaps, of Joe, exhibited greater pleasure at the change in their situation than the old patriarch. It rejuvenated him. His hearing was almost restored. "One move more," he said, "and I shall be young and spry agin as the day I got my freedom,"—that day, so many, many years ago, which he so well remembered! Well, the "one move more" was near; and the morning of a new freedom, the morning of a more perfect youth and gladness, was not distant.

It was the old man's delight to go out and sit in the sun before the door, in the clear December weather, and pull off his cap to the Judge as he passed. To get a bow, and perhaps a kind word, from the illustrious Gingerford, was glory enough for one day, and the old man invariably hurried into the house to tell of it.

But one morning a singular thing occurred. To all appearances—to the eyes of all except one—he remained sitting out there in the sun after the Judge had gone. But Fessenden's, looking up suddenly, and staring at vacancy, cried,—

"Hollo!"

"What, child?" asked Mrs. Williams.

"The old man!" said Fessenden's. "Comin' into the door! Don't ye see him?"

Nobody saw him but the lad; and of course all were astonished by his earnest announcement of the apparition. The old grandmother hastened to look out. There sat her father still, on the bench by the apple-tree, leaning against the trunk. But the sight did not satisfy her. She ran out to him. The smile of salutation was still on his lips, which seemed just saying, "Sarvant, Sah," to the Judge. But those lips would never move again. They were the lips of death.

"What is the matter, Williams?" asked the Judge, on his return home that afternoon.

"My gran'ther is dead, Sir; and I don't know where to bury him." This was the negro's quiet and serious answer.

"Dead?" ejaculates the Judge. "Why, I saw him only this morning, and had a smile from him!"

"That was his last smile, Sir. You can see it on his face yet. He went to heaven with that smile, we trust."

To heaven? a negro in heaven? If that is so, some of us, I suppose, will no longer wish to go there. Or do you imagine that you will have need of servants in paradise, and that that is what Christian niggers are for? Or do you believe that in the celestial congregations there will also be a place set aside for the colored brethren,—a glorified niggers' pew? You scowl; you don't like a joke upon so serious a subject? Hypocrite! do you see nothing but a joke here?

The Judge leaves everything and goes home with his coachman. Sure enough! there is the same smile he saw in the morning, frozen on the face of the corpse.

"Gently and late death came to him!" says Gingerford. "Would we could all die as happy! There is no occasion to mourn, my good woman."

"Bless the Lord, I don't mourn!" replied the old negress. "But I'm so brimful of thanks, I must cry for 't! He died a blessed ole Christian; an' he's gone straight to glory, if there's anything in the promises. He is free now, if he never was afore;—for, though they pretend there a'n't no slaves in this 'ere State, an' the law freed us years ago, seems to me there a'n't no r'al liberty for us, 'cept this!" She pointed at the corpse, then threw up her eyes and hands with an expression of devout and joyful gratitude. "He's gone where there a'n't no predijice agin color, bless the Lord! He's gone where all them that's been washed with the blood of Christ is all of one color in His sight!" Then turning to the Judge,—"And you'll git your reward, Sir, be sure o' that!"

"My reward?" And Gingerford, touched with genuine emotion, shook his head, sadly.

"Yes, Sir, your reward," repeated the old woman, tenderly arranging the sheet over the still breast, and still, folded hands of the corpse. "For makin' his last days happy,—for makin' his last minutes happy, I may say. That 'ere smile was for you, Sir. You was kinder to him 'n folks in gin'ral. He wa'n't used to 't. An' he felt it. An' he's gone to glory with the news on 't. An' it'll be sot down to your credit there, in the Big Book."

Where was the Judge's eloquence? He could not find words to frame a fitting reply to this ignorant black woman, whose emotion was so much deeper than any fine phrases of his could reach, and whose simple faith and gratitude overwhelmed him with the sudden conviction that he had never yet said anything to the purpose, in all his rhetorical defences of the down-trodden race. From that conviction came humility. Out of humility rose inspiration. Two days later his eloquence found tongue; and this was the occasion of it:—

The body of the old negro was to be buried. That he should be simply put into the ground, and nothing said, any more than as if he were a brute beast, did not seem befitting the obsequies of so old a man and so faithful a Christian. The family had natural feelings on that subject. They wanted to have a funeral sermon.

Now it so happened that there was to be another funeral in the village about that time. The old minister, had he been living, might have managed to attend both. But the young minister couldn't think of such a thing. The loveliest flower of maidenhood in his parish had been cut down. One of the first families had been bereaved. Day and night he must ponder and scribble to prepare a suitable discourse. And then, having exhausted spiritual grace in bedecking the tomb of the lovely, should he,—good gracious! could he descend from those heights of beauty and purity to the grave of a superannuated negro? Could divine oratory so descend?

"On that fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor"?

Ought the cup of consolation, which he extended to his best, his worthiest friends and parishioners, to be passed in the same hour to thick African lips?

Which questions were, of course, decided in the negative. There was another minister in the village, but he was sick. What should be done? To go wandering about the world in search of somebody to preach the funeral sermon seemed a hard case,—as Mr. Williams remarked to the Judge.

"Tell you what, Williams," said the Judge,—"don't give yourself any more trouble on that account. I'm not a minister, nor half good enough for one,"—he could afford to speak disparagingly of himself, the beautiful, gracious gentleman!—"but if you can't do any better, I'll be present and say a few words at the funeral."

"Thank you a thousand times!" said the grateful negro. "Couldn't be nothin' better 'n that! We never expected no such honor; an' if my ole gran'ther could have knowed you would speak to his funeral, he'd have been proud, Sir!"

"He was a simple-minded old soul!" replied the Judge, pleasantly. "And you're another, Williams! However, I am glad you are satisfied. So this difficulty is settled, too." For already one very serious difficulty had been arranged through this man's kindness.

Did I neglect to mention it,—how, when the old negro died, his family had no place to bury him? The rest of his race, dying before him, had been gathered to the mother's bosom in distant places: long lines of dusky ancestors in Africa; a few descendants in America,—here and there a grave among New-England hills. Only one, a child of Mr. Williams's, had died in Timberville, and been placed in the old burying-ground over yonder. But that was now closed against interments. And as for purchasing a lot in the new cemetery,—how could poor Mr. Williams ever hope to raise money to pay for it?

"Williams," said the Judge, "I own several lots there, and if you'll be a good boy, I'll make you a present of one."

Ah, Gingerford! Gingerford! was it pure benevolence that prompted the gift? Was the smile with which you afterwards related the circumstance to dear Mrs. Gingerford a smile of sincere satisfaction at having done a good action and witnessed the surprise and gratitude of your black coachman? Tell us, was it altogether an accident, with no tincture whatever of pleasant malice in it, that the lot you selected, out of several, to be the burial-place of negroes, lay side by side with the proud family-vault of your neighbor Frisbie?

The Judge was one of those cool heads, who, when they have received an injury, do not go raving of it up and down, but put it quietly aside, and keep their temper, and rest content to wait patiently, perhaps years, perhaps a lifetime, for the opportunity of a sudden and pat revenge. Indeed, I suppose he would have been well satisfied to answer Frisbie's spite with the nobler revenge of magnanimity and smiling forbearance, had not the said opportunity presented itself. It was a temptation not to be resisted. And he, the most philanthropical of men, proved himself capable of being also the most cruel.

There, in the choicest quarter of the cemetery, shone the white ancestral monuments of the Frisbies. Death, the leveller, had not, somehow, levelled them,—proud and pretentious even in their tombs. You felt, as you read the sculptured record of their names and virtues, that even their ashes were better than the ashes of common mortals. They rendered sacred not only the still inclosure where they lay, but all that beautiful sunny bank; so that nobody else had presumed to be buried near them, but a space of many square rods on either side was left still unappropriated,—until now, when, lo! here comes a black funeral, and the corpse of one who had been a slave in his day, to profane the soil!

Nor is this all, alas! There comes not one funeral procession only. The first has scarcely entered the cemetery, when a second arrives. Side by side the dead of this day are to be laid: our old friend the negro, and the lovely young lady we have mentioned,—even the fairest of Mr. Frisbie's own children.

For it is she. The sweetest of the faces Fessenden's saw that stormy night at the window, and yearned to be within the bright room where the fire, was,—that dear warm face is cold in yonder coffin which the afflicted family are attending to the tomb.

And Frisbie, as we have somewhere said, loved his children. And in the anguish of his bereavement he had not heeded the singular and somewhat humiliating fact that his daughter had issued from the portal of Time in company with one of his most despised tenants,—that, in the same hour, almost at the same moment, Death had summoned them, leading them together, as it were, one with his right hand, and one with his left, the way of all the world. So that here was a surprise for the proud and grief-smitten parent.

"What is all that, Stephen?" he demands, with sudden consternation.

"It seems to be another funeral, Sir. They're buryin' somebody next lot to yours."

"Who, who, Stephen?"

"I—I ruther guess it's the old nigger, Sir," says Stephen.

The mighty man is shaken. Wrath and sorrow and insulted affection convulse him for a moment. His face grows purple, then pale, and he struggles with his neckcloth, which is choking him. He sees the tall form of Gingerford at the grave, and knows what it is to wish to murder a man. Were those two Christian neighbors quite alone, in this solitude of the dead, I fear one of them would soon be a fit subject for a coroner's inquest and an epitaph. O pride and hatred! with what madness can you inspire a mortal man! O Fessenden's! bless thy stars that thou art not the only fool alive this day, nor the greatest!

Fessenden's walked alone to the funeral, talking by himself, and now and then laughing. Gentleman Bill thought his conduct indecorous, and reproved him for it.

"Gracious!" said the lad, "don't you see who I'm talkin' with?"

"No, Sir,—I can't say I see anybody, Sir."

"No?" exclaimed the astonished youth. "Why, it's the old man, goin' to his own funeral!"

This, you may say, was foolishness; but, oh, it was innocent and beautiful foolishness, compared with that of Frisbie and his sympathizers, when they discovered the negro burial, and felt that their mourning was too respectable to be the near companion of the mourning of those poor blacks, and that their beautiful dead was too precious to be laid in the earth beside their dead.

What could be done? Indignation and sorrow availed nothing. The tomb of the lovely was prepared, and it only remained to pity the affront to her ashes, as she was committed to the chill depths amid silence and choking tears. It is done; and the burial of the old negro is deferentially delayed until the more aristocratic rites are ended.

Gingerford set the example of standing with his hat off in the yellow sunshine and wintry air, with his noble head bowed low, while the last prayer was said at the maiden's sepulture. Then he lifted up his face, radiant; and the flashing and rainbow-spanned torrent of his eloquence broke forth. He had reserved his forces for this hour. He had not the Williams family and their friends alone for an audience, but many who had come to attend the young lady's funeral remained to hear the Judge. It was worth their while. Finely as he had discoursed at the hut of the negroes, before the corpse was brought out, that was scarcely the time, that was certainly not the place, for a crowning effort of his genius. But here, his larger audience, the open air, the blue heavens, the graves around, the burial of the young girl side by side with the old slave, all contributed to inspire him. Human brotherhood, universal love, the stern democracy of death, immortality,—these were his theme. Life, incrusted with conventionalities; Death, that strips them all away. This is the portal (pointing to the grave) at which the soul drops all its false incumbrances,—rank, riches, sorrow, shame. It enters naked into eternity. There worldly pride and arrogance have no place. There false judgment goes out like a sick man's night-lamp, in the morning light of truth. In the courts of God only spiritual distinctions prevail. That you were a lord in this life will be of no account there, where the humblest Christian love is preferred before the most brilliant selfishness,—where the master is degraded, and the servant is exalted. And so forth, and so forth; a brief, but eloquent address, of which it is to be regretted that no report exists.

Then came the prayer,—for the Judge had a gift that way too; and the tenderness and true feeling with which he spoke of the old negro and the wrongs of his race drew tears from many eyes. Then a hymn was sung,—those who had stayed to sneer joining their voices seriously with those of the lowly mourners.

A few days later, Mr. Williams had the remains of his child taken from the old burying-ground, and brought here, and laid beside the patriarch. And before spring, simple tombstones of white marble (at Gingerford's expense) marked the spot, and commemorated the circumstances of the old man's extreme age and early bondage.

And before spring, alas! three other graves were added to that sunny bank! One by one, all those fair children whom Fessenden's had seen in the warm room where the fire was had followed their sister to the tomb. So fast they followed that Mr. Frisbie had no time to move his family-vault from the degrading proximity of the negro graves. And Fessenden's still lived, an orphan, yet happy, in the family of blacks which had adopted him; while the parents of those children, who had loved them, were left alone in the costly house, desolate. Was it, as some supposed, a judgment upon Frisbie for his pride? I cannot tell. I only know, that, in the end, that pride was utterly broken,—and that, when the fine words of the young minister failed to console him, when sympathizing friends surrounded him, and Gingerford came to visit him, and they were reconciled, he turned from them all, and gratefully received hope and comfort from the lips of a humble old Christian who had nursed the last of his children in her days and nights of suffering, almost against his will.

That Christian? It was the old negro woman.

Early in the spring, Mr. Williams——But no more! Haven't we already prolonged our sketch to an intolerable length, considering the subject of it? Not a lover in it! and, of course, it is preposterous to think of making a readable story without one. Why didn't we make young Gingerford in love with—let's see—Miss Frisbie? and Miss Frisbie's brother (it would have required but a stroke of the pen to give her one) in love with—Creshy Williams? What melodramatic difficulties might have been built upon this foundation! And as for Fessenden's being a fool and a pauper, he should turn out to be the son of some proud man, either Gingerford or Frisbie. But it is too late now. We acknowledge our fatal mistake. Who cares for the fortunes of a miserable negro family? Who cares to know the future of Mr. Williams, or of any of his race?

Suffice it, then, to say, that, as for the Williamses, God has taken care of them in every trial,—turning even the wrath of enemies to their advantage, as we have seen; just as He will, no doubt, in His fatherly kindness, provide for that unhappy race which is now in the perilous crisis of its destiny, and concerning which so many, both its friends and enemies, are anxiously asking, "What will become of them?"



FORGOTTEN.

In this dim shadow, where She found the quiet which all tired hearts crave, Now, without grief or care, The wild bees murmur, and the blossoms wave, And the forgetful air Blows heedlessly across her grassy grave.

Yet, when she lived on earth, She loved this leafy dell, and knew by name All things of sylvan birth; Squirrel and bird chirped welcome, when she came: Yet now, in careless mirth, They frisk, and build, and warble all the same.

From the great city near, Wherein she toiled through life's incessant quest, For weary year on year, Come the far voices of its deep unrest, To touch her dead, deaf ear, And surge unechoed o'er her pulseless breast.

The hearts which clung to her Have sought out other shrines, as all hearts must, When Time, the comforter, Has worn their grief out, and replaced their trust: Not even neglect can stir This little handful of forgotten dust.

Grass waves, and insects hum, And then the snow blows bitterly across; Strange footsteps go and come, Breaking the dew-drops on the starry moss: She lieth still and dumb, And counts no longer any gain or loss.

Ah, well,—'t is better so; Let the dust deepen as the years increase; Of her who sleeps below Let the name perish and the memory cease, Since she has come to know That which through life she vainly prayed for,—Peace!



WET-WEATHER WORK.

BY A FARMER.

VIII.—CONCLUSION.

As I sit in my library-chair listening to the welcome drip from the eaves, I bethink me of the great host of English farm-teachers who in the last century wrote and wrought so well, and wonder why their precepts and their example should not have made a garden of that little British island. To say nothing of the inherited knowledge of such men as Sir Anthony Fitz-Herbert, Hugh Platt, Markham, Lord Bacon, Hartlib, and the rest, there was Tull, who had blazed a new path between the turnip and the wheat-drills—to fortune; there was Lord Kames, who illustrated with rare good sense, and the daintiness of a man of letters, all the economies of a thrifty husbandry; Sir John Sinclair proved the wisdom of thorough culture upon tracts that almost covered counties; Bakewell (of Dishley)—that fine old farmer in breeches and top-boots, who received Russian princes and French marquises at his kitchen-fireside—demonstrated how fat might be laid on sheep or cattle for the handling of a butcher; in fact, he succeeded so far, that Dr. Parkinson once told Paley that the great breeder had "the power of fattening his sheep in whatever part of the body he chose, directing it to shoulder, leg, or neck, as he thought proper,—and this," continued Parkinson, "is the great problem of his art."

"It's a lie, Sir," said Paley,—"and that's the solution of it."

And yet Dr. Parkinson was very near the truth.

Besides Bakewell, there was Arthur Young, as we have seen, giving all England the benefit of agricultural comparisons by his admirable "Tours"; Lord Dundonald had brought his chemical knowledge to the aid of good husbandry; Abercrombie and Speechly and Marshall had written treatises on all that regarded good gardening. The nurseries of Tottenham Court Road, the parterres of Chelsea, and the stoves of the Yew Gardens were luxuriant witnesses of what the enterprising gardener might do.

Agriculture, too, had a certain dignity given to it by the fact that "Farmer George" (the King) had written his experiences for a journal of Arthur Young, the Duke of Bedford was one of the foremost advocates of improved farming, and Lord Townshend took a pride in his sobriquet of "Turnip Townshend."

Yet, for all this, at the opening of the present century, England was by no means a garden. Over more than half the kingdom, turnips, where sown at all, were sown broadcast. In four counties out of five, a bare fallow was deemed essential for the recuperation of cropped lands. Barley and oats were more often grown than wheat. Dibbling or drilling of grain, notwithstanding Platt and Jethro Tull, were still rare. The wet clay-lands had, for the most part, no drainage, save the open furrows which were as old as the teachings of Xenophon; indeed, it will hardly be credited, when I state that it is only so late as 1843 that a certain gardener, John Reade by name, at the Derby Show of the Royal Agricultural Society, exhibited certain cylindrical pipes, which he had formed by wrapping damp clay around a smooth billet of wood, and with which he "had been in the habit of draining the hot-beds of his master." A sagacious engineer who was present, and saw these, examined them closely, and, calling the attention of Earl Spencer (the eminent agriculturist) to them, said, "My Lord, with them I can drain all England."

It was not until about 1830 that the subsoil-plough of Mr. Smith of Deanston was first contrived for special work upon the lands of Perthshire. Notwithstanding all the brilliant successes of Bakewell, long-legged, raw-boned cattle were admired by the majority of British farmers at the opening of this century, and elephantine monsters of this description were dragged about England in vans for exhibition. It was only in 1798 that the "Smithfield Club" was inaugurated for the show of fat cattle, by the Duke of Bedford, Lord Somerville, Arthur Young, and others; and it was about the same period that young Jonas Webb (whose life has latterly been illustrated by a glowing chapter from Elihu Burritt) used to ride upon the Norfolk bucks bred by his grandfather, and, with a quick sense of discomfort from their sharp backs, vowed, that, when he "grew a man, he'd make better saddles for them"; and he did, as every one knows who has ever seen a good type of the Brabaham flock.

The Royal Agricultural Society dates from 1838. In 1835 Sir Robert Peel presented a farmers' club at Tamworth with "two iron ploughs of the best construction," and when he inquired after them and their work the following year, the report was that the wooden mould-board was better: "We tried 'em, but we be all of one mind, that the iron made the weeds grow." And I can recall a bright morning in January of 1845, when I made two bouts around a field in the middle of the best dairy-district of Devonshire, at the stilts of a plough so cumbrous and ineffective that a thrifty New-England farmer would have discarded it at sight. Nor can I omit, in this connection, to revive, so far as I may, the image of a small Devon farmer, who had lived, and I dare say will die, utterly ignorant of the instructions of Tull, or of the agricultural labors of Arthur Young: a short, wheezy, rotund figure of a man, with ruddy face,—fastening the hs in his talk most blunderingly,—driving over to the market-town every fair-day, with pretty samples of wheat or barley in his dog-cart,—believing in the royal family like a gospel,—limiting his reading to glances at the "Times" in the tap-room,—looking with an evil eye upon railways, (which, in that day, had not intruded farther than Exeter into his shire,)—distrusting terribly the spread of "eddication": it "doan't help the work-folk any; for, d' ye see, they've to keep a mind on their pleughing and craps; and as for the b'ys, the big uns must mind the beasts, and the little uns's got enough to do a-scaring the demed rooks. Gads! what hodds to them, please your Honor, what Darby is a-dooin' up in Lunnun, or what Lewis-Philup is a-dooin' with the Frenchers?" And the ruddy farmer-gentleman stirs his toddy afresh, lays his right leg caressingly over his left leg, admires his white-topped boots, and is the picture of British complacency. I hope he is living; I hope he stirs his toddy still in the tap-room of the inn by the pretty Erme River; but I hope that he has grown wiser as he has grown older, and that he has given over his wheezy curses at the engine as it hurtles past on the iron way to Plymouth and to Penzance.