Within the great dingy walls no shining sunlight brightened the air. Dim and cheerless, it hung laden with smoke and vapor, that floated in clouds to the rafters. The harsh clang of heavy machinery, together with the roar of the furnaces, seemed to shake the very building. Among the enormous wheels that whirled with frightful velocity, and the immense belts that whizzed above their heads, the workmen, black and begrimed, looked small, weird and unearthly, moving about upon the damp ground, with its jet-like covering of charred cinders. The place seemed an apparition of demons, performing in some cavern of the lower regions their evil incantations. No wonder the young lady seldom went there. Its gloom fell upon her with a heavy oppression, and her breath only came freely when once more she found herself out in the clear and open sunlight. It happened in this manner that she first came to take any notice of old Simlin: There were gathered quite a party of young folks; and the colonel, who had been in Cincinnati upon business, had returned the previous evening, bringing with him another gentleman, apparently a stranger to the family. It was at the breakfast-table that the company were discussing the “sights” of the neighborhood, and debating whether they would take him first over to Paint Creek upon a fishing-excursion, or across the river to Mount Logan, famous for having been the rendezvous of the great Indian chief, when the colonel spoke up,— “Why not begin at home?” he said. “Do not fatigue him to death the first day, and I am proud enough of my foundry to think it might be of interest even to Mr. Safford; at least I mean to have him shown over it before he leaves.” The young man, of course, immediately stated that it would give him great pleasure, and the whole company, to the most of whom it would prove a novelty, gladly acquiesced in the proposition. So it was decided, and two hours later they all started on their way. When they entered the foundry it seemed more gloomy than ever, the atmosphere more stifling, and the jar of the machinery more painfully loud and discordant. Even the gay young people who had chatted and laughed all the morning felt the sudden change that involuntarily subdued their merriment. They broke up and scattered in twos and threes over the place, following the lead of simple curiosity, but the stranger-gentleman staid beside Helen, the “young misses.” “What a queer, unreal place!” he said. “One would never expect to find any thing like it in this beautiful valley. Does it not make you think, coming upon it suddenly out of the sunlight, of the evil genii you have read about in some fairy-tale long ago? And the workmen, at whose bidding all this gigantic power is brought into action, how small and weird they look!”