orm of the softened
material, smoothed it with the battledoor, gauged it with the compasses,
coaxed it with the sugar-tongs, and finally trimmed it around the top
with his scissors as easily as if it had been of paper. It was then
cracked off from the pontil and carried away, a finished _liqueur_-glass
of the tiniest size, to be annealed. After this it might be used in its
simple condition, or ornamented with engraving, while the bottom of the
foot, still rough from contact with the pontil, was to be ground,
smoothed, and then polished.

"Oh, how lovely! Look, Miselle, at this ruby glass," cried out Optima.

"Gorgeous!" assented Miselle, peeping into a small pot where glowed and
heaved what seemed in very truth a mass of molten rubies.

"What _are_ you going to make of this beautiful glass?" inquired she,
enthusiastically, of a pleasant-looking man who was patiently waiting
for room to approach his work.

"Lamp-globes, Ma'am," returned he, sententiously.

"Poor Miselle! You thought it would be Cinderella's slipper, at least,
didn't you?" laughed Optima. "But look!"

The man, dipping his pipe, not into the ruby glass, but into an
adjoining pot of fine flint-glass, carefully blew a small globe, and
then removing the tube from his mouth swung it about in the air for a
few moments, until it had gained a certain degree of firmness. Then
dipping the bubble into the precious pot of ruby glass, (whose color, as
Cicerone mysteriously whispered, was derived from an oxide of gold,) he
withdrew it coated with the brilliant color, and so softened by the heat
as to be capable of further distension. After gently blowing, until the
shade had reached its proper size, the workman handed it to another,
who, rolling it upon the iron arms of his bench, made an opening, at the
point diametrically opposite that attached to the blow-pipe, with the
end of the compasses, and carefully enlarged, gauged, and shaped it, by
means of plyers and battledoor.

"Pretty soon you will see how they cut the figures out and show the
white glass underneath," said the guide; but Miselle's attention was at
this moment engrossed by a series of small explosions, apparently close
at hand, and disagreeably suggestive of the final ascension of the Glass
Works, inclusive of all the pale men and boys, who might certainly be
supposed purified by fire, and ready to be released from the furnace of
affliction. Not feeling herself worthy to join this sublimated thron