It
seemed as if the earth performed its usual course in the heavens, and
kept its place and functions in the movements of the planets; days and
nights varied in their length according to the season, and the heat of
the sun was at one time of the year great and at another weak: but much
that depended hitherto upon the constitution of the globe was suspended.
There were no clouds in the sky, no dews dropping from the air, no
reproduction in the earth. It seemed decayed and dying of old age. Yet
Paulett said, a new existence would, perhaps, arise on this same scene,
and from these same elements. Once before, the earth had been reduced to
eight persons by the action of water; and now the absence of the same
element had brought it to four. Charles and Alice might be the destined
parents of a new race, and those names that were so familiar now, might
become the venerable appellations of the founders of the third race of
man. Ellen smiled and shook her head, looking at the boy and girl, who
were building a house of pebbles; and both parents listened for a while
to what they were saying. Charles recollected the house he had dwelt in
before the great shipwreck of human life drove then to the cavern; and
he was teaching Alice that there were rooms below and rooms above, and
that he had heard how people like their father had carried great stones,
and put them one on another to make these rooms. Alice persisted in
making her house one hollow cavern; and the other she called Charles's
house, and did not understand his recommendation.

"Charles is taking the part already of a teacher, in whom remains the
traditionary knowledge of an old world," said Paulett; "and Alice
represents the new inhabitants, who have their own rude copies of
natural objects, but who will be open to the training of the learned
man."

"The learned man will be their father," said Ellen; "they will gladly
take their notions from him."

"Yes; but if it should be so destined, the first generation must work
hard merely to live--they must be very long ignorant of every thing
except a paternal government, and such habitations as can be raised or
appropriated most easily. They will be children in comparison to Charles
all their lives, if we can but succeed in giving him the ideas of the
age we have lived in. Fancy them, Ellen, increased to perhaps fifty
inhabitants before he dies, a very old man, coming round his chair to
hear of the wonderful steam-engine, and the