And now, with good store of diamonds, and with increasing skill and success in the resolution of them into water, both Paulett and Ellen looked upon the lives of all as safe for the present, and their thoughts were at liberty to wander to some other subject. They believed that they and their children were alone in the world, for every sign of life from other countries, as well as their own, had ceased. It was very long since any human tidings had come, and though, after men had done with each other, birds continued their migrations, these had now long been over, and the years passed away without bringing or sending a single wing. The course of the seasons, too, was strange and unnatural. It seemed as if the earth performed its usual course in the heavens, and kept its place and functions in the movements of the planets; days and nights varied in their length according to the season, and the heat of the sun was at one time of the year great and at another weak: but much that depended hitherto upon the constitution of the globe was suspended. There were no clouds in the sky, no dews dropping from the air, no reproduction in the earth. It seemed decayed and dying of old age. Yet Paulett said, a new existence would, perhaps, arise on this same scene, and from these same elements. Once before, the earth had been reduced to eight persons by the action of water; and now the absence of the same element had brought it to four. Charles and Alice might be the destined parents of a new race, and those names that were so familiar now, might become the venerable appellations of the founders of the third race of man. Ellen smiled and shook her head, looking at the boy and girl, who were building a house of pebbles; and both parents listened for a while to what they were saying. Charles recollected the house he had dwelt in before the great shipwreck of human life drove then to the cavern; and he was teaching Alice that there were rooms below and rooms above, and that he had heard how people like their father had carried great stones, and put them one on another to make these rooms. Alice persisted in making her house one hollow cavern; and the other she called Charles's house, and did not understand his recommendation. "Charles is taking the part already of a teacher, in whom remains the traditionary knowledge of an old world," said Paulett; "and Alice represents the new inhabitants, who have their own rude copies of natural objects, but who will be open to the training of the learned man." "The learned man will be their father," said Ellen; "they will gladly take their notions from him."