I sometimes think you would rather have me die than have your equatorial

stolen. Confess that your admiration for me was based on my house and

position in the county! Now I am shorn of all that glory, such as it

was, and am a widow, and am poorer than my tenants, and can no longer buy

telescopes, and am unable, from the narrowness of my circumstances, to

mix in circles that people formerly said I adorned, I fear I have lost

the little hold I once had over you.' 'You are as unjust now as you have been generous hitherto,' said St. Cleeve, with tears in his eyes at the gentle banter of the lady, which

he, poor innocent, read as her real opinions. Seizing her hand he

continued, in tones between reproach and anger, 'I swear to you that I

have but two devotions, two thoughts, two hopes, and two blessings in

Advertisement..

this world, and that one of them is yourself!' 'And the other?' 'The pursuit of astronomy.' 'And astronomy stands first.' 'I have never ordinated two such dissimilar ideas. And why should you

deplore your altered circumstances, my dear lady? Your widowhood, if I

may take the liberty to speak on such a subject, is, though I suppose a

sadness, not perhaps an unmixed evil. For though your pecuniary troubles

have been discovered to the world and yourself by it, your happiness in

marriage was, as you have confided to me, not great; and you are now left

free as a bird to follow your own hobbies.' 'I wonder you recognize that.' 'But perhaps,' he added, with a sigh of regret, 'you will again fall a

prey to some man, some uninteresting country squire or other, and be lost

to the scientific world after all.' 'If I fall a prey to any man, it will not be to a country squire. But

don't go on with this, for heaven's sake! You may think what you like in

silence.' 'We are forgetting the comet,' said St. Cleeve. He turned, and set the

instrument in order for observation, and wheeled round the dome.

While she was looking at the nucleus of the fiery plume, that now filled

so large a space of the sky as completely to dominate it, Swithin dropped

his gaze upon the field, and beheld in the dying light a number of

labourers crossing directly towards the column.

'What do you see?' Lady Constantine asked, without ceasing to observe the

comet.

'Some of the work-folk are coming this way. I know what they are coming

for,--I promised to let them look at the comet through the glass.' 'They must not come up here,' she said decisively.




Most Popular