“Perhaps it appears so from the peculiar position whence you view it.  You never observed it before from a wagon, in a broad prairie, with naught intervening between the constellation and yourself save illimitable space, though I agree with you in thinking it particularly splendid.  I have ever regarded it as the most beautiful among the many constellations which girt the heavens.”

“I have often wondered if Cygnus was not the favorite of papists, Dr. Bryant.”

“Ah I it never occurred to me before, but, since you mention it, I doubt not they are partial to it.  How many superstitious horrors are infused into childish brains by nurses and nursery traditions!  I well remember with what terror I regarded the Dolphin, or, in common parlance, ‘Job’s Coffin,’ having been told that, when that wrathful cluster was on the meridian, some dreadful evil would most inevitably befall all who ventured to look upon it; and often, in my boyhood, I have covered my face with my hands, and asked its whereabouts.  Indeed I regarded it much as AEneas did Orion, when he says: 

  “’To that blest shore we steered our destined way,
  When sudden dire Orion roused the sea! 
  All charged with tempests rose the baleful star,
  And on our navy poured his watery war.’

The contemplation of the starry heavens has ever exerted an elevating influence on my mind.  In viewing its glories, I am borne far from the puerilities of earth, and my soul seeks a purer and more noble sphere.”

“Your quotation from Virgil recalled a passage in Job—­’Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into morning.’  Oh! how inimitably sublime is inspired language—­and ‘turneth the shadow of death into morning.’  And how comforting the promise conveyed,” said Mary, earnestly.

“Miss Irving, don’t you admire Cassiopeia very much?” said Dr. Bryant, wishing to turn the current of her thoughts.  “I think it very beautiful, particularly when it occupies its present position, and, as it were, offers to weary travelers so inviting a seat.  Yet often I am strangely awed, in gazing on the group so enveloped in unfathomable mystery.  Who may say when another of its jewels shall flicker and go out?  And when may not our own world to other planets be a ‘Lost Star?’ How childish associations cling to one in after years.  I never looked up at Cassiopeia, without recalling the time when my tutor gave me as a parsing lesson, the first lines of the ’Task’—­literally a task to me (mind I do not claim the last as original, for it is a plagiarism on somebody, I forget now who).  My teacher first read the passage carefully over, explaining each idea intended to be conveyed, and at the conclusion turned to an assistant, and remarked that ’with Cassiopeia for a model, he wondered chairs were not earlier constructed.’  I wondered in silence what that hard word could signify, and at length summoned courage to ask an explanation.  A few nights afterward, visiting at my father’s, he took me out, pointed to the constellation, and gave the origin of the name, while, to my great joy, I discovered the resemblance to a chair.  Ah! that hour is as fresh in my memory as though I stood but last night by his side and listened to his teachings.