The stars were out in their very best humour, looking so clear and merry in their twinkling; while the Milky Way stole out to view in all its maiden, lily beauty. Can we wonder, then, that our young voyager sang out—

“O what a splendid starlight night! There seems to be ever so many more stars than usual. Can any one count them all?

Yes; those you now see are about 2000. But the telescope shows us far more. There are 50,000 regularly catalogued. A magnifying power of 180 would give 20,000,000. A small patch of the Milky Way has revealed millions of stars.

Milky Way, father! O that is that serpent-like twisting of white stuff across the heavens. But why should it look so white and all other parts so black?

Because it is there that most of the stars lie, and give out the brightest light.

But I don’t see that the milk is all stars.

Take up the telescope and look at that white patch near that red star.

What a pretty sight! Why, a lot of the milk has turned into stars already. I am sure there must be a tremendous lot to be seen through the telescope of an astronomer.

Do you remember the Milky Way on the northern side of the equator?

Yes, father, and I think it a prettier looking[Pg 61] white snake in the sky than this one up here, for it had more spangling stars about it.

I must say that the northern constellations are more brilliant than those of the south.

And what a great bit of the south side has hardly any stars at all. Just look, father, there to the westward, and there to the eastward. They both look as if lighted up with a few children’s toy-candles, compared to the dazzling light of the north, and right overhead toward the south.

The Milky Way is narrowest near the Southern Cross, and widens both ways after. Near the Scorpion’s tail it is very broad—about twenty degrees, while at the Cross it is about four degrees. There is a curious opening in it near Sirius, like a long, narrow, dark lake among the mountains of snow.

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