At this point his sister arrived, the quiet domestic life she had been living in Hanover being suddenly changed for one of “ceaseless and inexhaustible activity” in her brother’s service, being at once his astronomical and musical assistant, and his housekeeper and guardian.  Of the latter, his erratic habits made him in great need.  “For ten years she persevered at Bath,” says her biographer, “singing when she was told to sing, copying when she was told to copy, ‘lending a hand’ in the workshop, and taking her full share in all the stirring and exciting changes by which the musician became the king’s astronomer and a celebrity; but she never, by a single word, betrays how these wonderful events affected her, nor indulges in the slightest approach to an original sentiment, comment, or reflection not strictly connected with the present fact.”  In an ordinary case this would not be remarkable, but in the present instance it acquires considerable significance from the fact that, to our best knowledge, Miss Herschel’s was a temperament which would be strongly affected by the life she was leading, and her silence as to personal sentiment shows to what an extent she had become a tool in her brother’s hands—­rejoicing in his successes, and sympathizing in his sorrows, but never revealing to what depth of self-sacrifice she may have been plunged by her voluntary surrender and devotion to her brother.

As we understand her, Miss Herschel would have been eminently fitted to fill a position of high domestic responsibility; and no woman of this sort, who has once dreamed of a home of her own, with its ennobling and divine responsibilities, can, without a pang, give up so sweet a vision for a life of sacrifice, although it be brilliant with the cold splendors of science.  Her life with her brother, as has been said, was one of ceaseless activity in all the capacities in which she served him.  As housekeeper, she occupied a small room in the attic, while her brother occupied the ground-floor, furnished in new and handsome style.  She received a sum for weekly expenses, of which she must keep a careful account, and all the marketing fell to her.  She had to struggle with hot-tempered servants, and with the greatest irregularity and disorder in the household; while her imperfect knowledge of English (this was soon after her arrival at Bath) added a new pang to her homesickness and low spirits.  Later on, in her capacity as musical assistant, we are told that she once copied the scores of the “Messiah” and “Judas Maccabaeus” into parts for an orchestra of nearly one hundred performers, and the vocal parts of “Samson,” besides instructing the treble singers, of whom she was now herself the first.  As astronomical assistant, she has herself given a glimpse of her experience in the following words:  “In my brother’s absence from home, I was, of course, left solely to amuse myself with my own thoughts, which were any thing but cheerful.  I found I was to be trained for an assistant astronomer,