e ours, have
no light of their own. In order that you may get some idea of its size,
let me tell you it is isolated in the heavens like an island and is
shaped like a lens; well, then, for a ray of light to travel from one
extreme of the longer axis of this lens to the other it takes seventeen
thousand years, and yet light travels at the rate of seventy thousand
leagues a second!"

"_Madre mia!_ how tremendous!"

"But that is a mere nothing. Our nebula is only one of many others that
people space. There are others vastly larger. With the telescope they
are constantly discovering new ones. When a telescope of greater power
is invented, then the nebulae are separated into stars; but beyond these
are other nebulae still, which had never been seen before. If a telescope
of still greater power were made, those nebulae, also, in their turn,
would be reduced to stars; but then, beyond that, there would be still
other nebulae, and so on forever."

"And so there is no end to the sky?"

"That is the supposition."

Maximina remained for a few minutes rapt in thought.

"And are there inhabitants in those other worlds, Miguel?"

"There is no reason why there should not be. Such observations as we can
make in our own solar system make it probable that the other stars have
conditions of life very like our own.... Do you see that big beautiful
star which looks like Sirius? That is Jupiter, one of our brother
worlds; but an older brother--fourteen hundred times as big as we are.
He is a privileged brother, the first-born, so to speak, of the system.
There the day lasts five hours, and the night five; but as he has four
moons which are constantly shining, and long twilights, it may be said
that nights do not exist there. The same may almost be said of the
seasons. Eternal spring reigns over its whole surface. For us that is
the symbol or the ideal of a happy existence. Why should there not be
inhabitants in that fortunate world?"

The young wife was again silent and thoughtful, and at last she asked:--

"How do those worlds hang in space, and travel forever, and never run
into each other?"

"They are sustained, and they live through love.... Yes, through love,"
he repeated, seeing the curiosity in his wife's eyes. "Love is the law
that rules the whole creation: the sublime law that unites thy heart to
mine is the same that unites all the beings of the universe, and yet
keeps them distinct. We are one in God, in the Creator of