“And so may well endure all that poor Bernard Palissy suffered--Bernard Palissy, the discoverer of Écouen ware, the Huguenot excepted by Charles IX. on the day of Saint-Bartholomew. He lived to be rich and honored in his old age, and lectured on the ‘Science of Earths,’ as he called it, in the face of Europe.” “So long as my fingers can hold an iron, you shall want for nothing,” cried the poor wife, in tones that told of the deepest devotion. “When I was Mme. Prieur’s forewoman I had a friend among the girls, Basine Clerget, a cousin of Postel’s, a very good child; well, Basine told me the other day when she brought back the linen, that she was taking Mme. Prieur’s business; I will work for her.” “Ah! you shall not work there for long,” said David; “I have found out----” Eve, watching his face, saw the sublime belief in success which sustains the inventor, the belief that gives him courage to go forth into the virgin forests of the country of Discovery; and, for the first time in her life, she answered that confident look with a half-sad smile. David bent his head mournfully. “Oh! my dear! I am not laughing! I did not doubt! It was not a sneer!” cried Eve, on her knees before her husband. “But I see plainly now that you were right to tell me nothing about your experiments and your hopes. Ah! yes, dear, an inventor should endure the long painful travail of a great idea alone, he should not utter a word of it even to his wife .... A woman is a woman still. This Eve of yours could not help smiling when she heard you say, ‘I have found out,’ for the seventeenth time this month.” David burst out laughing so heartily at his own expense that Eve caught his hand in hers and kissed it reverently. It was a delicious moment for them both, one of those roses of love and tenderness that grow beside the desert paths of the bitterest poverty, nay, at times in yet darker depths.