s are employed for the purpose of maintaining this
hot fire. The smelter lights the fire inside the bottom of his furnace,
and the tower acts as a sort of chimney. The pipes of the goat-skin
bellows are joined on to clay pipes which pass into the bottom of the
furnace, and lead the draught of air from the bags into the fire. The
bellows-pipes themselves cannot be put into the furnace, because they
would take fire.

When the smelter has got his fire well aglow, he places upon it a layer
of charcoal, and above that a thin layer of iron-ore. On the top of
these he puts another layer of charcoal and another of ore, and thus he
goes on loading his furnace until he thinks that he has filled it
sufficiently full. Then he works away at his bellows for three or four
hours.

At the end of this time the charcoal and much of the ore are burned
away, and there is not much left but glowing embers in the bottom of the
furnace. The smelter breaks a hole through the furnace, and, poking with
his tongs into the ashes, draws out a little red-hot ball of iron,
scarcely as large as a cricket ball, which has been formed from the ore,
partly by the heat of the fire, and partly by the help of the red-hot
charcoal which has acted chemically upon the ore. This little ball of
iron is well hammered, in order to knock out any ashes which may have
lodged in it, and it is then ready to be worked up into an implement, or
to be made into steel for a sword-blade or some other weapon.

THE PRINCESS HAS COME.

The white snow has gone from the vale and the mountain;
The ice from the river has melted away;
The hills far and near
Are less winterly drear,
And the buds of the hawthorn are peeping for May.
I hear a light footstep abroad in my garden;
Oh, stay, does the wind through the shrubbery blow?
There's warmth in the breeze,
And a song in the trees,
And the Princess of Springtime is coming, I know.

The crocus has lighted its lamp in the forest,
Though it shelters its flame with a close-drawn green hood;
The primrose peeps out,
With a shiver of doubt,
And wonders if winter has left us for good.
But hark, from afar comes the sound of a bugle!
Or is it the bee where the rose-bushes grow?
He loiters so long,
With such joy in his song,
That the Princess of Springtime is coming, I know.

The blackbird has climbed to the top of the cedar,
And