“Do you think so?” and there was a trace of something serious, something of a surprise on his countenance.

“I have heard Mr. Armstrong talk about the stars before, although never so much as he did that night, and then I’ve watched them a good bit, and noticed the way they go.  As for the planets, they are not so easy, but I think I have got hold of it all.”

Miriam looked out of window when she went to bed, and felt a new pleasure.  The firmament, instead of being a mere muddle—­beautiful, indeed, she had always thought it—­had a plan in it.  She marked where one particularly bright star was showing itself in the south-east—­it was Sirius; and in the night she rose softly, drew aside the blind, saw him again due south, and recognised the similarity of the arc with that which her husband had constructed with his withies and wire.  She lay down again, thinking, as she went off to sleep, that still that silent, eternal march went on.  At four she again awoke from light slumber, and crept to the blind again.  Another portion of the same arc had been traversed, and Sirius with his jewelled flashes was beginning to descend.  She thought she should like to see him actually sink, and she waited and waited till he had disappeared, till the first tint of dawn was discernible in the east, and that almost indistinguishable murmur was heard which precedes the day.  She then once more lay down, and when she rose, she was richer by a very simple conception, but still richer.  She felt as a novice might feel who had been initiated, and had been intrusted at least with the preliminary secrets of her community.  She owed her initiation to Mr. Armstrong, but also to her husband.  Experts no doubt may smile, and so may the young people who, in these days of universal knowledge, have got up astronomy for examinations, but nevertheless, in the profounder study of the science there is perhaps no pleasure so sweet and so awful as that which arises, not when books are read about it, but when the heavens are first actually watched, when the movement of the Bear is first actually seen for ourselves, and with the morning Arcturus is discerned punctually over the eastern horizon; when the advance of the stars westwards through the year, marking the path of the earth in its orbit, is noted, and the moon’s path also becomes intelligible.

Mr. Armstrong had long desired to make an orrery for the purpose of instructing a few children and friends, but had never done anything towards it, partly for lack of time, and partly for lack of skill with joinery tools.  He now, however, had in Farrow at once a willing pupil and an artist, and the work went forward in Farrow’s house, Miriam watching its progress with great interest.  She could even contribute her share, and the graduation of the rim was left to her, a task she performed with accuracy after a few failures in pencil.  It was a handsome instrument when it was completed.  The relative distances