adjust the instrument, I think to the one in
Andromeda, or that in Cygnus, but I should not know one of them from the
other.

How beautiful!--she said as she looked at the wonderful object.---One is
orange red and one is emerald green.

The young man made an explanation in which he said something about
complementary colors.

Goodness!--exclaimed the Landlady.---What! complimentary to our party?

Her wits must have been a good deal confused by the strange sights of the
evening. She had seen tickets marked complimentary, she remembered, but
she could not for the life of her understand why our party should be
particularly favored at a celestial exhibition like this. On the whole,
she questioned inwardly whether it might not be some subtle pleasantry,
and smiled, experimentally, with a note of interrogation in the smile,
but, finding no encouragement, allowed her features to subside gradually
as if nothing had happened. I saw all this as plainly as if it had all
been printed in great-primer type, instead of working itself out in her
features. I like to see other people muddled now and then, because my
own occasional dulness is relieved by a good solid background of
stupidity in my neighbors.

--And the two revolve round each other?--said the Young Girl.

--Yes,--he answered,--two suns, a greater and a less, each shining, but
with a different light, for the other.

--How charming! It must be so much pleasanter than to be alone in such a
great empty space! I should think one would hardly care to shine if its
light wasted itself in the monstrous solitude of the sky. Does not a
single star seem very lonely to you up there?

--Not more lonely than I am myself,--answered the Young Astronomer.

--I don't know what there was in those few words, but I noticed that for
a minute or two after they, were uttered I heard the ticking of the
clock-work that moved the telescope as clearly as if we had all been
holding our breath, and listening for the music of the spheres.

The Young Girl kept her eye closely applied to the eye-piece of the
telescope a very long time, it seemed to me. Those double stars
interested her a good deal, no doubt. When she looked off from the glass
I thought both her eyes appeared very much as if they had been a little
strained, for they were suffused and glistening. It may be that she
pitied the lonely young man.

I know nothing in the world tenderer than the pity that a kind-hearted
young