o him) longer than he would have kept her
grandmother. These young people are so ignorant, you know. As for our
Scheherezade, her delight was unbounded, and her curiosity insatiable.
If there were any living creatures there, what odd things they must be.
They could n't have any lungs, nor any hearts. What a pity! Did they
ever die? How could they expire if they didn't breathe? Burn up? No air
to burn in. Tumble into some of those horrid pits, perhaps, and break
all to bits. She wondered how the young people there liked it, or
whether there were any young people there; perhaps nobody was young and
nobody was old, but they were like mummies all of them--what an idea
--two mummies making love to each other! So she went on in a rattling,
giddy kind of way, for she was excited by the strange scene in which
she found herself, and quite astonished the Young Astronomer with her
vivacity. All at once she turned to him.

Will you show me the double star you said I should see?

With the greatest pleasure,--he said, and proceeded to wheel the
ponderous dome, and then to 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.