Was it any marvel if poverty and sorrow invaded his household; if his wife grew moody and sad, and if the neighbours, pitying the hapless woman and innocent children, pronounced hard judgment upon a man who consumed his time in buying pots and breaking them, in grinding drugs and burning them, and in going to and fro upon his bootless errand? Death, too, had once and again entered his doors, bearing away the two sickly infants we saw clinging to their mother, while in their place, two others had been born, inheriting, alas! their malady. Of late, Lisette, full of gloomy thoughts, had taken to complaining, and remonstrating with her husband. Her temper had been soured by disappointment and trouble; and hope, so long deferred, ceased to buoy up her spirit. She could not understand the course Bernard was pursuing. She did not partake in his glowing visions of future fame and prosperity, and the instinct of power and the energy of will that nerved and inspired him were all unknown to and unshared by her. Poor suffering woman! She felt as any other common-sense wife and mother would have felt in her circumstances; and bewailing his obstinate persistence in such profitless labour, she embittered his home by her lamentations and reproaches. In this strait Palissy began to give way: he faltered, and at length made a compromise with his anxious helpmate. One more last trial he pleaded for; and then—if it failed, he would abandon the search for ever! He must have felt that the happiness as well as the fortune of his life, depended on the cast. Rather, we learn from his own touching account of what ensued, that he looked for counsel and help from above. In all his ways did this good man acknowledge his heavenly Father’s hand, and seek his blessing. What befell, in this crisis, he thus tells us: “God willed that, when I had begun to lose my courage, and was gone for the last time to a glass furnace, having a man with me carrying more than 300 kinds of trial pieces, there was one among them which was melted within four hours after it had been placed in the furnace, which turned out white and polished, in a way that caused me to feel such joy as made me think I was become a new creature.” With winged feet he flew home, bearing his treasure, which he pronounced “exceedingly beautiful,” and, almost beside himself with delight, he rushed into the chamber, where his poor wife lay in her sick bed, and holding up the shining white fragment exclaimed, “I have found it!” Lisette caught the infection of his gladness, and hailed the first ray of returning prosperity. Poor woman, she little knew how long she must wait before she could warm herself in its sunshine. [Picture: . . he exclaimed, “I have found it!”]