after which it would be allowed, as gradually, to
subside, until the pottery was cool enough for
removal. To turn, the seggars, and add fuel to
the two first furnaces, was my first work. As
before, I found number three in advance of the
others, and so left it for half an hour, or an
hour. I then went round the yard; tried the
doors; let the dog loose; and brought him back
with me to the baking-houses, for company.
After that, I set my lantern on a shelf beside
the door, took a book from my pocket, and
began to read.

I remember the title of the book as well as
possible. It was called Bowlker's Art of
Angling, and contained little rude cuts of all kinds
of artificial flies, hooks, and other tackle. But
I could not keep my mind to it for two minutes
together; and at last I gave it up in despair,
covered my face with my hands, and fell into a
long absorbing painful train of thought. A
considerable time had gone by thus—maybe an
hour—when I was roused by a low whimpering
howl from Captain, who was lying at my feet.
I looked up with a start, just as I had started
from sleep the night before, and with the same
vague terror; and saw, exactly in the same
place and in the same attitude, with the
firelight full upon him—George Barnard!

At this sight, a fear heavier than the fear of
death fell upon me, and my tongue seemed
paralysed in my mouth. Then, just as last night,
he rose, or seemed to rise, and went slowly
out into the next room. A power stronger than
myself appeared to compel me, reluctantly, to
follow him. I saw him pass through the second
room—cross the threshold of the third room—
walk straight up to the oven—and there pause.
He then turned, for the first time, with the
glare of the red firelight pouring out upon him
from the open door of the furnace, and looked
at me, face to face. In the same instant, his
whole frame and countenance seemed to glow
and become transparent, as if the fire were all
within him and around him and in that glow
he became, as it were, absorbed into the furnace,
and disappeared!

I uttered a wild cry, tried to stagger from
the room, and fell insensible before I reached
the door.

When I next opened my eyes, the grey dawn
was in the sky; the furnace doors were all
closed as I had left them when I last went
round; the dog was quietly sleeping not far
from my side; and the men were ringing at the
gate, to be let in.

I told my tale from beginning to end, and was
laughed at, as a matter of course, by all who
heard it. When it was found, however, that
my statements never varied, and, above all, that
George Barnard continued absent, some few
began to talk it over seriously, and among
those few, the master of the works. He
forbade the furnace to be cleared out, called in
the aid of a celebrated naturalist, and had the
ashes submitted to a scientific examination.
The result was as follows:

The ashes were found to have been largely
saturated with some kind of fatty animal matter.
A considerable portion of those ashes consisted
of charred bone. A semi-circular piece of iron,
which evidently had once been the heel of a
workman's heavy boot, was found, half fused,
at one corner of the furnace. Near it, a tibia
bone, which still retained sufficient of its
original form and texture to render identification
possible. This bone, however, was so much
charred, that it fell into powder on being
handled.

After this, not many doubted that George
Barnard had been foully murdered, and that his
body had been thrust into the furnace.
Suspicion fell upon Louis Laroche. He was
arrested, a coroner's inquest was held, and
every circumstance connected with the night
of the murder was as thoroughly sifted and
investigated as possible. All the sifting in the
world, however, failed either to clear or to
condemn Louis Laroche. On the very night of his
release, he left the place by the mail train, and
was never seen or heard of there, again. As
for Leah, I know not what became of her. I
went away myself before many weeks were over,
and never have set foot among the Potteries
from that hour to this.

VI.

HOW THE BEST ATTIC WAS UNDER A CLOUD.

Major, you have assured me of your sympathy;
you shall receive my confidence. I not only
seem—as you have searchingly observed—
"under a cloud," but I am. I entered (shall I
say like a balloon?) into a dense stratum of
cloud, obscuring the wretched earth from view,
in the year eighteen hundred and dash, in the
sweet summer season, when nature, as has been
remarked by some distinguished poet, puts on her
gayest garb, and when her countenance is
adorned with the sunniest and loveliest of smiles.
Ah! what are now those smiles to me? What
care I for sunshine or for verdure? Por me,
summer is no more. For, I must ever remember
that it was in the summer that the canker
ate its way into my heart's core—that it was in
the summer that I parted with my belief in
mankind—that it was in summer that I knew
for the first time that WOMAN—but this is
premature. Pray be seated.

I have no doubt that my appearance and
words convey to you, Major, and to all observant
persons, that I have an elevated soul. In fact,
were it otherwise, how could I be under a cloud?
The sordid soul won't blight. To one possessing
an elevated soul like myself, the task of keeping
accounts at a furrier's (in a large way) could
not be otherwise than repugnant. It was
repugnant, and the rapture of getting a holiday,
which was annually accorded me in June—not
a busy month in the fur-trade—was something
perfectly indescribable. Of course, whenever my
vacation time came round, I invariably rushed
off to the country; there to indulge my natural
tastes and commune with our mother, Nature.