on the sun through two successive elliptical
revolutions. At the end of the second, the influence that had
impounded the comet came, however, into play oppositely, and restored
it again to its wandering life and hyperbolic courses. Its cloudy form
has not presented itself amongst our stars since 1770, when its visit
was thus strangely received by Jupiter.

Twenty-three comets were seen by the naked eye during the sixteenth
century, 12 were seen in the seventeenth, 8 in the eighteenth, and 9
in the first half of the nineteenth. This does not, however, give
anything like an adequate idea of the number of comets really in
existence. When Kepler was asked how many comets he thought there
were, he answered: 'As many as there are fishes in the sea.' And
modern science seems determined, that the sagacious German shall not
be at fault even in this predication. Two or three fresh telescopic
comets are now usually found out every year. In 1847, 178 comets were
known to be moving in parabolic orbits, and therefore to be in some
way permanent connections of our world-system. Lalande has enumerated
700 comets, but Arago believes that not less than 7,000,000 exist,
which fall at some time or other within the reach of our sun's
influence.

THE SLEEPY LADY.

She is easy, good-natured, and compliant about everything but her
sleep. On that point she can bear no interference and no stoppages.
Unless she had it fully out every day, neither would life be worth
having for herself, nor would she allow the life of any other people
to be endurable. Sleep is her great gift; her body has been
wonderfully constituted to take a great deal of ease. Deprive her of
that, and you starve her as effectually as you famish a human being by
abstraction of food. Her personal appearance confirms her philosophy;
for you can detect not one particle of restlessness about her. All is
soft, rounded, and woolly, as if she carried an atmosphere of
deafening about with her.

It has been her habit ever since her earliest years. One of the
principal anecdotes of her girlish days now remembered in her family
is, that her mamma having sent on some exigency to rouse her, she
faintly murmured forth, 'Not for kingdoms!' then turned on the other
side, and doggedly went to sleep again. There is another story of her
having had to rise one morning at half-past seven, in order to attend
a friend as bridemaid, when, coming down stairs, and seeing it to be a
raw driz