‘Yes, sister; I am waiting for you. Are we going now?’
‘Yes, we are going now. Walk softly, and hold my hand. Come, let us hasten; we have far to go, and the way is weary.’
Silently they passed down the stairs, and out into the night-air, along the path to Rome, walking on till they were lost in the darkness of the night; Genevieve’s face stern and set; the little one’s, bright and hopeful.
Gradually the east flushed with the golden splendour of the coming dawn; the birds awoke to welcome up the sun; and after them, the laggard morn. The orb of day saw strange things as he rose in the vault of heaven: he saw two tired wayfarers sleeping on the roadside; and then, later, the anxious faces of a party gathered at a pretty villa by the Tiber. As he sank to rest again, he went down upon a party searching woods and streams far and near; and as he dipped behind the shoulder of the purple hills that night, his last red glimpse flushed the faces of the stern sad-visaged group on their way to Rome. When he rose again there were no wayfarers by the roadside, but a brother on his knees praying for his lost darlings and strength to aid him in his extremity. In Sol’s daily flight he saw hope lost, abandoned in despair; but as came each morn, he brought a gentle healing, but never Genevieve back to the Mattio woods again!
And so time passed on, bringing peace, if not forgetfulness.
(To be continued.)
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
The armour-plated ship Resistance was lately the subject of some interesting and highly practical experiments at Portsmouth. The ship’s armour is four and a half inches in thickness, and this armour was backed up in various places—for the purpose of experiment—with india-rubber and asbestos, in order to see how far these materials might be relied upon as automatic leak-stoppers. A little fleet of gunboats now fired upon the vessel at short range, sending shot after shot completely through the armour, and penetrating the india-rubber backing, which measured an inch and a half in thickness. The armour when protected with an outer jacket of india-rubber fared no better. Much the same results were obtained when the shots were directed to that part of the hull of the vessel which had been provided with a backing of asbestos. The water poured so freely through the shot-holes, that they had to be plugged, to obviate the risk of the vessel sinking. In the sequel, it was unanimously agreed that both india-rubber and asbestos are quite valueless as additions to armour-plating.
Mr Mallet, of the University of Virginia, describes a most unusual phenomenon which occurred in the laboratory of that institution last winter, in the shape of explosive ice. The ice in question formed in the glass vessel of a gasogene—the familiar apparatus for charging water with carbonic acid gas. The expansion of the ice burst the vessel, after which the ice itself exploded repeatedly, and threw off fragments with a crackling sound. The effect is attributed to the pressure of the gas contained in the ice, which in the case of water would appear as simple effervescence.