"I think all questions are answered there. The stars tell it all. When you look at them you know! They have put them on our flag. There are times when this seems but a poor nation: boastful, corrupt, violent, and preparing, as it is now, to steal another country by fraud and war; yet the stars on the flag always make me happy and confident. Do you see the constellations swinging above us, such unimaginable vastnesses, not roving or crashing through the illimitable at haphazard, but moving in more excellent measure, and to a finer rhythm, than the most delicate clockwork man ever made? The great ocean-lines mark our seas with their paths through the water; the fine brains of the earth are behind the ships that sail from port to port, yet how awry the system goes! When does a ship come to her harbor at an hour determined when she sailed? What is a ship beside the smallest moon of the smallest world? But, there above us, moons, worlds, suns, all the infinite cluster of colossi, move into place to the exactness of a hair at the precise instant. That instant has been planned, you see; it is part of a system--and can a system exist that no mind made? Think of the Mind that made this one! Do you believe so inconceivably majestic an Intelligence as that could be anything but good?
Ah, when you wonder, look above you; look above you in the night, I say," he cried, his hand upraised like his transfigured face. "Look above you and you will never fear that a sparrow's fall could go unmarked!"
It was not to the stars that she looked, but to the orator, as long as he held that pose, which lasted until a hard-ridden horse came galloping down the street. As it dashed by, though the rider looked neither to right nor left, Miss Betty unconsciously made a feverish clutch at her companion's sleeve, drawing him closer to the hedge.
"It is my father," she said hurriedly in a low voice. "He must not see you. You must never come here. Perhaps--" She paused, then quickly whispered: "You have been very kind to me. Good-night."
He looked at her keenly, and through the dimness saw that her face was shining with excitement. He did not speak again, but, taking a step back- ward, smiled faintly, bent his head in humble acquiescence, and made a slight gesture of his hand for her to leave him. She set her eyes upon his once more, then turned swiftly and almost ran along the hedge to the gate; but there she stopped and looked back. He was standing where she had left him, his face again uplifted to the sky.
She waved him an uncertain farewell, and ran into the garden, both palms against her burning cheeks.
Night is the great necromancer, and strange are the fabrics he weaves; he lays queer spells; breathes so eerie an intoxication through the dusk; he can cast such glamours about a voice! He is the very king of fairyland.
Miss Betty began to walk rapidly up and down the garden paths, her head bent and her bands still pressed to her cheeks; now and then an unconscious exclamation burst from her, incoherent, more like a gasp than a word. A long time she paced the vigil with her stirring heart, her skirts sweeping the dew from the leaning flowers. Her lips moved often, but only the confused, vehement" Oh, oh!" came from them, until at last she paused in the middle of the garden, away from the trees, where all was open to the sparkling firmament, and extended her arms over her head.
"O, strange teacher," she said aloud, "I take your beautiful stars! I shall know how to learn from them!"
She gazed steadily upward, enrapt, her eyes resplendent with their own starlight.
"Oh, stars, stars, stars!" she whispered.
In the teeth of all wizardry, Night's spells do pass at sunrise; marvellous poems sink to doggerel, mighty dreams to blown ashes and solids regain weight. Miss Betty, waking at daybreak, saw the motes dancing in the sun at her window, and watched them with a placid, unremembering eye.
She began to stare at them in a puzzled way, while a look of wonder slowly spread over her face. Suddenly she sat upright, as though something had startled her. Her fingers clenched tightly.
"Ah, if that was playing!"
