Three years had been spent about this work, and, for the present, he was no wiser than when he began, and he resolved now to try his hand at the old trades. His poor wife urged that food and medicine must be thought of, and she lowered her voice as she added that the doctor had yet to be paid for her confinement, and for physicking their lost darling, whom he said he would soon cure, notwithstanding, she pined and languished like a frost-nipped flower, that fades away and dies. Poor mother! the tears trickled down her cheeks at the thought; and for all there were still three hungry little mouths to feed, she could not be reconciled to the loss of one of her treasures. But Palissy would not let her dwell upon this sorrow; he wiped away the tears, and smilingly said, he had good news for her. Yesterday, there had arrived in the town the commissioners deputed by the king to establish the salt-tax in the district of Saintonge; and it seems they had judged no man in the diocese more competent than Bernard Palissy for the task of mapping the islands and the countries surrounding all the salt marshes in that part of the world. It was a profitable job, and would occupy him many months. This was, indeed, glad tidings for Lisette; and that night she slept sweetly, and dreamed of her girlhood; for when the heart is happy it suns itself in the memories of early days. Her husband’s rest was broken and perturbed, for it pained him deeply to give up the struggle which had cost him so much, before he had justified his pertinacious efforts by success. Perhaps it was in reality advantageous to him, and tended to his eventual success, that he was thus perforce constrained to taste an interval of repose. When a man has been repeatedly foiled it is well to cease from effort awhile, and to dismiss, if possible, the subject which has occupied his thoughts too long and too unremittingly. Revolving in his mind such considerations, Palissy determined wholly to cease from his labours in pursuit of the discovery on which his heart was set, and “to comport himself as if he were not desirous to dive any more into the secrets of enamels.” CHAPTER III. “Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”—REV. xiv. 12.