of the ocean where it had never been seen before; marks which had stood in the deep of the sea might now be walked round at all times of the tide, and thick crusts of salt were beginning to spread upon tracts of the great deep. These tidings from foreign lands came at long intervals, and at long intervals was a ship sent from any English haven. The few dwellers of the coast knew not if there were still any dwellers of the interior: for England was become like the desert; and there were no beasts to carry one across it, and no water to be hoarded in skins for the passage. Traffic of every kind ceased; industry was gone; the secrets of science, and the cultivated mind of the philosopher, were all bent to the production of water; and many a precious object was resolved back into its elements, and afforded a scanty supply to a few parched mouths. The lingering inhabitants had the produce of past years only to live upon, which nothing replenished as it diminished, and to renew which the baked earth was wholly incompetent. In the heart of this desert, there was a family which had hitherto survived the destruction of life around them. It consisted of a father and mother, and two young children, Charles and Alice; the last of whom, the girl, was but a few months old when the Great Drought began. They had lived in Derbyshire, near the range of low hills called the Peak; and they and other inhabitants of that region had found water longer than many others, from the sides of the hills, and from excavations which they had made in the rocks. The strong hope and expectation of rain had kept them lingering on as long as any supply lasted; and Paulett, who in the days when ranks existed, had been a great landlord, had used both his knowledge and his influence to supply the wants of the people, and to postpone their destruction. But those days were gone by; his possessions were so much dust: he wanted water, and nobody wanted any thing else. He was a mere man now, like those who are born naked and die naked, and had to struggle with the needs of nature, even as every one else. Meantime his education availed him; and the resources which it taught him prolonged the lives of his family and himself. But he was soon obliged to limit himself to this sole care; for the supply he obtained was scanty, and he knew how precarious it must be. He had explored the cavern of the Peak with great attention, and he bored the rock in various places, and used means suggested by his knowledge of natural causes, which had procured a slender flow of water into a basin which he had made. The fury of thirsty men for water was so great, that he was obliged to keep his secret with the utmost care; and towards the end of the fourth year, he removed his wife and children to the cavern itself, and blocked up the entrance, in such a manner that he could defend it against any chance survivor. There was no want of the luxuries