e
blood back into those cold thin fingers, and gently caressing natures
that would wind all their tendrils about the unawakened heart which
knows so little of itself, is pitiable enough and would be sadder still
if we did not have the feeling that sooner or later the pale student
will be pretty sure to feel the breath of a young girl against his cheek
as she looks over his shoulder; and that he will come all at once to an
illuminated page in his book that never writer traced in characters,
and never printer set up in type, and never binder enclosed within his
covers! But our young man seems farther away from life than any student
whose head is bent downwards over his books. His eyes are turned away
from all human things. How cold the moonlight is that falls upon his
forehead, and how white he looks in it! Will not the rays strike
through to his brain at last, and send him to a narrower cell than this
egg-shell dome which is his workshop and his prison?

I cannot say that the Young Astronomer seemed particularly impressed
with a sense of his miserable condition. He said he was lonely, it is
true, but he said it in a manly tone, and not as if he were repining
at the inevitable condition of his devoting himself to that particular
branch of science. Of course, he is lonely, the most lonely being that
lives in the midst of our breathing world. If he would only stay a
little longer with us when we get talking; but he is busy almost always
either in observation or with his calculations and studies, and when the
nights are fair loses so much sleep that he must make it up by day. He
wants contact with human beings. I wish he would change his seat and
come round and sit by our Scheherezade!

The rest of the visit went off well enough, except that the "Man of
Letters," so called, rather snubbed some of the heavenly bodies as
not quite up to his standard of brilliancy. I thought myself that the
double-star episode was the best part of it.

I have an unexpected revelation to make to the reader. Not long after
our visit to the Observatory, the Young Astronomer put a package into my
hands, a manuscript, evidently, which he said he would like to have me
glance over. I found something in it which interested me, and told him
the next day that I should like to read it with some care. He seemed
rather pleased at this, and said that he wished I would criticise it as
roughly as I liked, and if I saw anything in it which might be dressed
t