THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



else. " My friends," said the professor, quite un- 

 daunted, " that is doubtless completely true. You 

 are not happy now ; you probably never will be. 

 But that is of little moment. Only conform faith- 

 fully to the laws of matter, and your children's 

 children will be happy in the course of a few 

 centuries ; and you will like that far better than 

 being happy yourselves. Only consider the mat- 

 ter in this light, and you yourselves will become 

 happy also ; and whatever you say, and whatever 

 you do, think only of the effect it will have five 

 hundred years afterward." 



At these solemn words, the anxious faces 

 grew calm. An awful sense of the responsibility 

 of each one of us, and the infinite consequences 

 of every human act, was filling the hearts of all ; 

 when, by a faithful conformity to the laws of mat- 

 ter, the boiler blew up, and the Australasian went 

 down. In an instant the air was rent with yells 

 and cries ; and all the Humanity that was on board 

 the vessel was busy, as the professor expressed 

 it, uniting itself with the infinite azure of the past. 

 Paul and Virginia, however, floated quietly away 

 in the cutter, together with the baggage and pro- 

 visions. Virginia was made almost senseless by 

 the suddenness of the catastrophe ; and, on seeing 

 five sailors sink within three yards of her, she 

 fainted dead away. The professor begged her not 

 to take it so much to heart, as these were the very 

 men who had got the cutter in readiness ; " and 

 they are therefore," he said, " still really alive in 

 the fact of our happy escape." Virginia, how- 

 ever, being quite insensible, the professor turned 

 to the last human being still to be seen above 

 the waters, and shouted to him not to be afraid 

 of death, as there was certainly no hell, and that 

 his life, no matter how degraded and miserable, 

 had been a glorious mystery, full of infinite sig- 

 nificance. The next moment the struggler was 

 snapped up by a shark. The cutter, meanwhile, 

 borne by a current, had been drifting rapidly 

 toward the island. And the professor, spreading 

 to the breeze Virginia's beautiful lace parasol, 

 soon brought it to the shore on a beach of the 



softest sand. 



v. 



The scene that met Paul's eyes as he landed 

 was one of extreme loveliness. He had run the 

 boat ashore in a little fairy bay, full of translu- 

 cent waters, and fringed with silvery sands. On 

 either side it was protected by fantastic rocks, 

 and in the middle it opened inland to an enchant- 

 ing valley, where tall tropical trees made a grate- 

 ful shade, and where the ground was carpeted 

 with the softest moss and turf. 



Paul's first care was for his fair companion. 

 He spread a costly cashmere shawl on the beach, 

 and placed her, still fainting, on this. In a few 

 moments she opened her eyes ; but was on the 

 point of fainting again as the horrors of the last 

 half-hour came back to her, when she caught 

 sight in the cutter of the largest of her own 

 boxes, and she began to recover herself. Paul 

 begged her to remain quiet while he went to re- 

 connoitre. 



He had hardly proceeded twenty yards into 

 the valley, when to his infinite astonishment he 

 came on a charming cottage, built under the 

 shadow of a bread-tree, with a broad veranda, 

 plate-glass windows, and red window-blinds. 

 His first thought was that this could be no 

 desert island at all, but some happy European 

 settlement. But, on approaching the cottage, it 

 proved to be quite untenanted, and, from the 

 cobwebs woven across the doorway, it seemed 

 to have been long abandoned. Inside there was 

 abundance of luxurious furniture ; the floors were 

 covered with gorgeous Indian carpets ; and there 

 was a pantry well stocked with plate and glass 

 and table-linen. The professor could not tell 

 what to make of it, till, examining the structure 

 more closely, he found it composed mainly of a 

 ship's timbers. This seemed to tell its own tale ; 

 and he at once concluded that he and Virginia 

 were not the first castaways who had been forced 

 to make the island for some time their dwelling- 

 place. 



Overjoyed at this discovery, the professor 

 hastened back to Virginia. She was by this time 

 quite recovered, and was kneeling on the cash- 

 mere shawl, with a rosary in her hands designed 

 especially for the use of Anglo-Catholics, and was 

 alternately lifting up her eyes in gratitude to 

 Heaven, and casting them down in anguish at her 

 torn and crumpled dress. The poor professor 

 was horrified at the sight of a human being in 

 this degrading attitude of superstition. But, as 

 Virginia quitted it with alacrity as soon as ever 

 he told his news to her, he hoped he might soon 

 convert her into a sublime and holy Utilitarian. 

 The first thing she besought him to do was to 

 carry her biggest box to this charming cottage, 

 that she might change her clothes, and appear in 

 something fit to be seen in. The professor most 

 obligingly at once did as she asked him ; and, 

 while she was busy at her toilet, he got from 

 the cutter what provisions he could, and pro- 

 ceeded to lay the table. When all was ready, he 

 rang a gong which he found suspended in the 

 lobby ; Virginia appeared shortly in a beautiful 



