Accordingly, Paulett every day carried on his son's education, as far as the boy's age permitted, and instructed him in all that he would have learned had the world been as it was formerly. Only, like a man in a shipwreck looking forward to a desert island as his best hope, he dwelt most upon what would be usefullest, supposing Charles (being preserved) to have to provide for the physical necessities of a new race of man. Next in order came science and arts; and it was easier to make him feel the merits of these than of the exploits of men, especially when they consisted of valour, and of the deeds of conquerors; for the heroic virtues seemed to take a new character in the present circumstances of the world; and whereas they used to kindle and blaze in personal danger, and at the sound of the applause of men, they now burned brightly in the endurance of a world's dissolution, which, with all its terrors and prolonged impressions, must be met by the calm, self-sustaining spirit, rising superior to the greatest excess of physical injury. The boy's soul replied to the call upon it. He learned to look on the dangers before him, and to consider the possibility of escape with quiet calculation of chances. He inured himself to privation readily, and eagerly tried to spare his mother and Alice from it. He and his father, hand in hand, walked over the desolate land, realizing the idea that they were in fact spirits, superior to all physical things, and divided from spirits and their sphere only by their frail connexion with a body. They talked of virtue and duty, and how good it was to dwell in these painful bodies, since they were the place wherein virtue was practised and duty learned; and the father taught the son that the opportunities occurred, not only in enduring the dissolution of the frame of present things, and in the untiring exertion to aid and support life in those who were of weaker sex than they, but in abiding with even and cheerful temper the vexations of every day, and in adorning as far as possible, as well as preserving, life. The mother was heroic, good, and patient, too. She brought her children, night and morning, to the mouth of the cavern, and there they all kneeled by Paulett, who prayed aloud with them and for them. Then Ellen made ready their meal, which must all be prepared without water, and which consisted of the stores from former harvests, of which there was abundance laid up in various houses; and the little Alice, who could run at her mother's side, learned to be useful in some matters, and patient and obedient. Charles played with her and taught her; and he himself, mere child as he was, grew merry in his play, and earnest; and many a time the profound silence of the earth was broken by the hearty laugh of children, which would ring out through the cavern, and reverberate against its walls. They grew, and were perfect and beautiful in shape; their minds developed, and talents and virtues filled them.