'Don't criticize me for coming alone,' she exclaimed with sensitive
promptness. 'There are social reasons for what I do of which you know
nothing.'

'Perhaps it is much to my discredit that I don't know.'

'Not at all. You are all the better for it. Heaven forbid that I should
enlighten you. Well, I see this is the hut. But I am more curious to go
to the top of the tower, and make discoveries.'

He brought a little lantern from the cabin, and lighted her up the
winding staircase to the temple of that sublime mystery on whose
threshold he stood as priest.

The top of the column was quite changed. The tub-shaped space within the
parapet, formerly open to the air and sun, was now arched over by a light
dome of lath-work covered with felt. But this dome was not fixed. At
the line where its base descended to the parapet there were half a dozen
iron balls, precisely like cannon-shot, standing loosely in a groove, and
on these the dome rested its whole weight. In the side of the dome was a
slit, through which the wind blew and the North Star beamed, and towards
it the end of the great telescope was directed. This latter magnificent
object, with its circles, axes, and handles complete, was securely fixed
in the middle of the floor.

'But you can only see one part of the sky through that slit,' said she.

The astronomer stretched out his arm, and the whole dome turned
horizontally round, running on the balls with a rumble like thunder.
Instead of the star Polaris, which had first been peeping in through the
slit, there now appeared the countenances of Castor and Pollux. Swithin
then manipulated the equatorial, and put it through its capabilities in
like manner.

She was enchanted; being rather excitable she even clapped her hands just
once. She turned to him: 'Now are you happy?'

'But it is all _yours_, Lady Constantine.'

'At this moment. But that's a defect which can soon be remedied. When
is your birthday?'

'Next month,--the seventh.'

'Then it shall all be yours,--a birthday present.'

The young man protested; it was too much.

'No, you must accept it all,--equatorial, dome stand, hut, and everything
that has been put here for this astronomical purpose. The possession of
these apparatus would only compromise me. Already they are reputed to be
yours, and they must be made yours. There is no help for it. If ever'
(here her voice lost some firmness),--'if ever you go away from me,--from
thi