phorical strain of a certain writer--"Phoebus drove his
steeds to be foddered in their western stables." Slowly twilight fell
upon the earth, and, one by one, the lamps of heaven were lit. The
wagon in which Dr. Bryant and Mary rode was rather in the rear of the
party, as the riders pressed anxiously forward. The cool night-wind
blew fresh upon the fevered brow of the invalid, and gently lifted and
bore back the clustering curls.

"I am very much afraid you will take cold:" and Dr. Bryant wrapped his
coat carefully about her.

"Thank you:" and she sank back in its heavy folds, and looked up to
the brilliant firmament, where the stars glittered, like diamonds on a
ground of black velvet, in the clear, frosty air.

"Orion has culminated; and how splendidly it glows to-night, I think I
never saw it so brilliant."

"Perhaps it appears so from the peculiar position whence you view it.
You never observed it before from a wagon, in a broad prairie,
with naught intervening between the constellation and yourself save
illimitable space, though I agree with you in thinking it particularly
splendid. I have ever regarded it as the most beautiful among the many
constellations which girt the heavens."

"I have often wondered if Cygnus was not the favorite of papists, Dr.
Bryant."

"Ah I it never occurred to me before, but, since you mention it, I
doubt not they are partial to it. How many superstitious horrors are
infused into childish brains by nurses and nursery traditions! I
well remember with what terror I regarded the Dolphin, or, in common
parlance, 'Job's Coffin,' having been told that, when that wrathful
cluster was on the meridian, some dreadful evil would most inevitably
befall all who ventured to look upon it; and often, in my boyhood, I
have covered my face with my hands, and asked its whereabouts. Indeed
I regarded it much as AEneas did Orion, when he says:

"'To that blest shore we steered our destined way,
When sudden dire Orion roused the sea!
All charged with tempests rose the baleful star,
And on our navy poured his watery war.'

The contemplation of the starry heavens has ever exerted an elevating
influence on my mind. In viewing its glories, I am borne far from
the puerilities of earth, and my soul seeks a purer and more noble
sphere."

"Your quotation from Virgil recalled a passage in Job--'Seek him that
maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death
into morning.' Oh! how i