persistent efforts. The tiny sounding-line of earth, lowered into the unfathomed depths of space, did at last 'touch bottom.' Countless millions of stars lie far too distant for any such measurement to become possible—and the word 'millions' is used advisedly. Only a few thousands of stars, at most, can be seen by the naked eye, but the telescope opens out an Universe of literal millions. Among all these, a very few-one here, one there-responded. In them a tiny apparent change of position was detected; a most minute ellipse or oval of seeming motion could be seen in the course of the year. Here was the ardently desired parallax. From this slight stir on the part of the star, in connection with the base-line of earth's orbit, the distance of that star from earth might be roughly calculated. How near, or how far, would you suppose the star to be? You know already the distance of earth from sun-nearly ninety-three millions of miles. A train journeying ceaselessly, at the steady rate of fifty miles an hour, day and night, might travel from here to the sun in about two hundred and ten years. But the same train journeying in like manner to one of the very nearest of the fixed stars-that is, to one of the nearest whose distance has yet been measured-would take no less than FIFTY MILLIONS OF YEARS in transit. Calculations have been made with great care as to 61 Cygni, a double star, not the nearest known, but one of our nearer starneighbours. It lies about five hundred thousand times farther away from us than the sun. The tiny apparent motion which results from the earth's annual journey has been detected, though so infinitesimal in size, that it has been compared with the size of a penny-piece placed two miles away. Still, even this minute apparent change of position is of exceeding value, since from it we know that 61 Cygni is somewhere about forty billions of miles distant. The bare idea of forty billions of miles is more than human brains can grasp. We say the words, and they convey no definite impression. If one of our nearer star-neighbours is forty billions of miles off -forty millions of millions!-what must be the distances of the farther stars? Some few, indeed, are a little nearer. Alpha Centauri, another double-star, is less than half as far. But fifteen or twenty billions are sufficiently startling. The very thought of the unimaginable depths of Space lying beyond-of suns beyond suns 'in endless range,' toned down by simple distance to mere quivering specks of light, is well-nigh overwhelming. These marvels of the heavens ought surely to speak to us, in no ambiguous language, if only we are willing to hear, of the infinite might of Him who made the stars.' SUN-RAYS AND STAR-BEAMS.-I. Questions. I. What is the fundamental difference between ancient and modern astronomy? 2. Explain the main uses of theory in science. 3. How can the distances of far-off bodies be found out? 4. Describe the comparative distances of sun and stars. Answers to be sent to Miss Coleridge, Cheyne, Torquay. VOL. 85 (V.-NEW SERIES). 28 NO. 506. FRIENDSHIP. A robin singing on a snow-fringed tree (Though winter winds be wailing), My friend! A snow-drop springing from a frost-bound bed A snowdrop springing from a frost-bound bed, (Though winter winds be wailing), My friend! A sunbeam breaking from a sky dull gray, (Though winter winds be wailing), My friend! NESTA LAKE. COLDACRES. A SKETCH FROM LIFE. BY HELEN SHIPTON. PART I. COLDACRES Farm stands near the head of the narrow valley that the Watchet Brook has sawn out for itself on its swift course towards the east. I suppose it owes its name to the fact that most of the little irregularly-shaped fields of which it is composed lie on the hill that slopes to the north, and the snow rests longer in their hollows than anywhere else in the neighbourhood. But the little farmhouse stands on the southern slope, on the other side of the brook, and looks a cheerful place enough on a summer morning, when the lilacs are in bloom in the little garden, and the monthly rose has more blossoms than there are months in the year. Some few years ago it belonged to an old couple named Anderson; an old man with a refined, somewhat severe-looking face and a grand manner; and a pretty, gentle old woman whose speech was somewhat more provincial than his, but not lessrefined. Their history, or rather that of their children, was a somewhat remarkable one, and it is not ended yet. The episode that here follows is not what the old people themselves, or even their children, would have regarded as most memorable, but possibly it may be reckoned so some day, when mundane events arrange themselves in a new order of precedence-as mountains do when we leave them in the distance, and the real heights look grandly over the heads of those lower ranges that before crowded them out of view. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, as far as I can gather, had both been domestic servants in a great family,-upper servants, trusted and respectable. They married late in life, and with their savings took and stocked Coldacres Farm, where the old man lived in hard-working enjoyment of being at last a 'master' instead of a servant. To many people the little farm would have meant absolute penury, but the Andersons were good managers, or perhaps their original savings held out while their children were young. Certainly the four boys were all sent to the grammar-school in the town, bearing with cheerful disregard a good deal of hardship as they trudged backwards and forwards through winter cold and summer heat, but profiting by their advantages more than most. And the one girl was not suffered to sink into a drudge, but fairly well educated, and then sent away from home; I believe to enter the service of the great folks whom her parents had served so long, whose country seat she only left to be comfortably married. The lads must have had unusual talents, inherited perhaps from their silent meditative father, for their mother was more good than clever. From the small beginning of the local grammar-school they went out into the wide world and prospered, and rumours of their success, vague and brilliant, came back to the little village-world they had left. John, the eldest, was in a merchant's office; then presently in business for himself and doing very well. James, the second, went through the same process of development in the office of a lawyer. As for Richard, number three, his lot in life was so distinguished and so strange that his former friends-and even I think his father and mother-never quite arrived at a proper understanding of it. He knew seven languages, so it was reported, and was gone over-seas, into some far Eastern country, in some distinguished capacity, and there was fast gaining both credit and renown. There he died, while still a young man, and perhaps to his mother at least-seemed less utterly removed, in his quiet grave, than he had done in his brilliant and busy life, or than John and James in their offices in far-off Liverpool. There was a long gap between Richard and the youngest boy, Michael. The one sister came between them, and she was five years old when Michael was born. Michael got his education, or rather the beginning of it, as the others had done; but by the time it was a question of what was to be done with him his father's strength was beginning to fail, and the work of the little farm to be more than he could manage. |