lower," because every evening it
comes into view about an hour after you can see the famous group of
stars called the Pleiades, which are in the shoulder of the Bull.

I do not care to trace the outline of this enormous bull, but his horns
are a great deal longer than you think at first. If you will extend the
two arms of that V a long way you will see two stars which may be called
the tips of his horns. One of these stars really belongs in another
constellation--our old friend the Charioteer, the one including
Capella. Wow! what a pair of horns!

But now we come to the daintiest of all constellations--the Seven
Sisters, or Pleiades (pronounced _plee'-a-deez_).

I can see only six of them, and there is a famous old tale about the
"lost Pleiad." But I needn't describe them. Every child finds them by
instinct. Some compare them to a swarm of bees; some to a rosette of
diamonds; some to dewdrops. But I would not compare them to a dipper as
some do, because the real Little Dipper is very different. The light
that seems to drip from the Pleiades is quivering, misty, romantic,
magical. No wonder many children love the Pleiades best of all the
constellations. No wonder the poets have praised them for thousands of
years. The oldest piece of poetry about them that I know of was written
about 1,500 years before Christ. You can find it in the book of Job. But
the most poetic description of the Pleiades that I have ever read is in
Tennyson's poem "Locksley Hall," in which he says they "glitter like a
swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid."

There are a great many old tales about the lost Pleiad. One is that she
veiled her face because the ancient city of Troy was burned. Another
story says she ceased to be a goddess when she married a man and became
mortal. Some people think she was struck by lightning. Others believe
the big star, Canopus, came by and ran away with her. Still others
declare she was a new star that appeared suddenly once upon a time, and
after a while faded away.

For myself, I do not believe any of these stories. One reason why I
don't is that a seventh star is really there, and many people can really
see it. Indeed, there are some people so sharp-eyed that on clear nights
they can see anywhere from eight to eleven. And, what is more, they can
draw a map or chart showing just where each star seems to them to be.

But the most wonderful stories about the Pleiades are the true stories.
One is that there