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these that she had not foreseen. She had considered that she might take this tone or that tone or even no tone at all; she was quite prepared for her presenting a face of blankness (to any form of interrogation) and saying, "What on earth are you talking about?" It was, in short, conceivable to her that Selina would deny, absolutely, that she had been in the museum, that they had stood face to face, and that she had fled in confusion. She was capable of explaining the incident by an idiotic error on Laura's part, by her having mistaken another person for her sister, by her seeing Captain Crispin in every bush; though doubtless she would be taxed (of course she would say that was the woman's own affair) to supply a reason for the embarrassment of the other lady. But she was not prepared for Selina's breaking out with: "Will you be so good as to inform me if you are engaged to be married to Mr. Wendover?"

“Engaged to him? I have seen him but three times."

"And is that what you usually do with gentlemen you have seen three times?"

"Are you talking about my having gone with him to see some sights? I see nothing wrong in that. To begin with, you see what he is. One might go with him anywhere. Then he brought us an introduction-we have to do something for him. Moreover, you threw him upon me the moment he came-you asked me to take charge of him."

"I didn't ask you to be indecent! If Lionel were to know it he wouldn't tolerate it, so long as you live with us." Laura was silent a moment. "I shan't live with you long." The sisters, side by side, with their heads turned, looked at each other, and a deep crimson had leaped into Laura's face. "I wouldn't have believed it-that you are so bad," she said. "You are horrible!" She saw that Selina had not taken up the idea of denying she judged that would be hopeless: the recognition, on either side, had been too sharp. She looked radiantly handsome, especially with the strange new expression that Laura's last word brought into her eyes. This expression seemed to the girl to show her more of Selina, morally, than

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she had ever yet seen-something of the full extent and the miserable limit.

"It's different for a married woman, especially when she's married to a beast. It's in a girl that such things are odious -scouring London with strange men. I am not bound to explain to you- there would be too many things to say. I have my reasons-I have my conscience. It was the oddest of all things, our meeting in that place I know that as well as you," Selina went on, with her wonderful affected clearness; "but it was not your finding me that was out of the way; it was my finding you—with your remarkable escort! That was incredible. I pretended not to recognize you, so that the gentleman who was with me shouldn't see you, shouldn't know you. You may thank me for saving you.

You had better wear a veil next time-one never knows what may happen. I met an acquaintance at Lady Watermouth's, and he came up to town with me. He happened to talk about old prints; I told him how I have collected them, and we spoke of the bother one has about the frames. He insisted on my going with him to that placefrom Waterloo-to see such an excellent model."

Laura had turned her face to the window of the carriage again; they were spinning along Park Lane, passing, in the quick flash of other vehicles, an endless succession of ladies with "dressed heads, of gentlemen in white neckties. "Why, I thought your frames were all so pretty!" Laura murmured. Then she added: "I suppose it was your eagerness to save your companion the shock of seeing me-in my dishonor-that led you to steal our cab." "Your cab?"

"Your delicacy was expensive for you!"

"You don't mean you were knocking about in cabs with him!" Selina cried. "Of course I know that you don't really think a word of what you say-about me," Laura went on, though I don't know that that makes your saying it a bit less unspeakably base."

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The brougham pulled up in Park Lane, and Mrs. Berrington bent herself to have a view through the front glass. "We are there, but there are two other

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IN the early morning of the 19th of last August there was a total eclipse of the sun. The moon's shadow, about 80 miles in diameter, first struck the earth near Berlin, at sunrise. From there it moved on into the Russian empire, passing just north of Moscow, and, bearing still a little to the north, crossed the Ural Mountains into Siberia; it passed over the towns of Krasnojarsk and Tobolsk, crossed Lake Baikal about noon, and now bending its course a little southward, advanced across Northern China, visited Japan in the afternoon, and finally ended its course in the Pacific Ocean about 2,000 miles west of the Sandwich Islands.

Like all total eclipses of the sun, it was anticipated by astronomers with

lively interest. The few rarely occurring moments when the sun's dazzling disk is hidden by the moon, and in our darkened air the glory of the corona and the mysteries of the solar atmosphere thus become visible and accessible to study-these moments constitute the astronomer's golden opportunity, to be utilized to the utmost. The writer of this paper had a somewhat special, and semi-private, interest in the matter, because lately a question has been raised by Mr. Lockyer and others as to the real existence of the so-called "reversing layer" of the sun's atmosphere, which layer owes its scientific recognition mainly to an observation made by myself during the Spanish eclipse of December, 1870. The obser

vation referred to was this-and an exquisitely beautiful thing it was to see:

The slit of the spectroscope, attached to a powerful telescope, was adjusted tangent to the sun's image at the precise point where the last ray would vanish under the advancing moon. A few moments before totality the spectrum still preserved in the main its familiar appearance, except that certain lines, usually only flickeringly and faintly bright at the sun's limb, were now steady and conspicuous; this was specially true of the three magnesium lines, and the mysterious line of the coro

na.

The other countless dark lines remained hard and black. But the moment the sunlight vanished, the dark lines instantly flashed into colored brightness, shone for two or three seconds, and then quickly faded away, leaving still visible only those which had been bright before totality. Of course, in the two or three seconds during which the phenomenon lasted it was not possible to be quite sure that all the dark lines were thus reversed, and in this uncertainty lies the opportunity for varying interpretations of the phenomenon. The natural interpretation, in the light of what was then known, was that this bright line spectrum which flashed out so beautifully is due to a thin sheet of gaseous matter, overlying the luminous clouds which constitute the so-called "photosphere," and containing, in the vaporous form, all the substances which reveal themselves to us by the dark lines of the ordinary spectrum.

Hence the writer's special interest in the Russian eclipse; and when the case was laid before certain liberal friends of everything that is good, they at once responded with the offer of funds sufficient to send out three of us with the necessary apparatus. Photography at first was not included in our plans; but when my colleague, Professor Libbey, volunteered to join us at his own charges, his offer was enthusiastically accepted, and through the kindness of the Washington astronomers and the Secretary of the Navy we secured the use of an eclipse camera which had been employed by one of the Government parties in photographing the Colorado eclipse of 1878. Professor Libbey was accom

panied by his wife, who had with her also two young friends, so that when we sailed from New York on the 25th of June, in the swift Etruria, we were a party of seven, Professor McNeill, and Mr. Fisher, our mechanician, being the two others of the original three.

Probably most of our readers know that our journey ended in disappointment and a rain-storm. We were at our post and in readiness on the designated morning, and no one of course was to blame for the envious clouds which defeated the army of astronomers who had taken position along the line of operations. But the disappointment was keen, and it is still rather a sober task to retrace in memory the way that led to and from it.

The journey, however, was in itself a most agreeable one, and full of interest, especially from an astronomer's point of view, for we took pains as far as possible to visit all the observatories, and all the distinguished astronomers that came in our way.

The voyage was quick and uneventful-we reached the Liverpool bar about 10 A.M., just seven days after we passed Sandy Hook, and arrived in London soon after midnight. It is much the same as I saw it in 1870, only ever more and more extensive; broadening, widening, overflowing all the country about it like stiffening lava. The Jubilee celebrations had just come to an end, and many of the persons we would have been glad to see were out of town, but many remained.

One delightful afternoon was spent with Dr. Huggins, the pioneer in astronomical spectroscopy. He is a veteran eclipse observer, and was naturally much interested in our plans: we owe to him many valuable suggestions.

We had also several interviews with Mr. Lockyer, and spent an "evening in council" with him, discussing, in the most cordial and friendly way, the points at issue in regard to the "reversing layer," and considering the best arrangements for making our observations decisive. He is a younger man than Dr. Huggins, but as an eclipse observer still more of a veteran, having already been. on duty on five such occasions. He

would have been glad to go to Russia himself, but his engagements would not permit.

But, after all, our red-letter day in London was not in London itself, but at Greenwich, whither we went one morning in response to a kind invitation from Mr. Christie, the Astronomer Royal. Everyone knows that the Royal Observatory of England is one of the oldest governmental institutions of the kind, and on the whole the most distinguished and important of them all, taking into account both the past and the present. It keeps up faithfully, according to its charter-duties, its special observations upon the sun, moon, and planets-observations which lie at the foundation of navigational astronomy-but it is reaching out in other directions also, especially in the line of astronomical physics.

The present Astronomer Royal, Mr. Christie, and his chief lieutenants, Mr. Turner and Mr. Maunder, are comparatively young men. I imagine that they keep the force of observers and computers, some twenty or thirty in number, pretty faithfully to their work, and that not infrequently the smooth running of the machine along ancient ruts is disturbed by the introduction of new methods.

At present they are specially interested in photography, both stellar and solar. We saw a number of admirable negatives of the sun, 9 inches in diameter, and some enlargements of sun-spots and the surrounding regions which rival, and perhaps quite equal, those we saw a few days later at Meudon. Experiments are also in progress upon the photography of double-stars, and one or two of the plates we saw are admirable.

To a certain extent the Observatory is in a transition state. The instruments which were introduced and used for the observation of the places of stars and planets under Airy's administration remain undisturbed. It is perhaps possible that with instruments of newer design and construction there might be some slight gain in accuracy; but it is doubtful whether it would be sufficient to offset the loss of continuity involved in a change.

The telescopic power at the disposal

of the observers has, however, become very inadequate, and the old 13-inch telescope of the equatorial is to be replaced by a new one of 28 inches aperture, now under construction by Grubb, of Dublin. The two-foot reflector of Lassell, with which he did such admirable work years ago, has recently been given to the Observatory by his daughters, and is proving itself a most useful instrument in numerous researches where a reflector is needed.

The Observatory has great advantages of situation. The main building itself is the work of Sir Christopher Wren, erected in 1675: a dignified edifice, surrounded by a numerous progeny of smaller constructions for the accommodation of various instruments which could not find convenient quarters in the original building. It stands isolated in the midst of Greenwich Park, on a hill about 150 feet high. From the great octagonal hall which makes the most charming of summer sitting-rooms, one looks out over the tree-tops upon a magnificent landscape. To the northwest is London, with the great dome of St. Paul's some six miles distant, rising high above the pall of smoke that overhangs the city; to the north, across the park and beyond the old Greenwich Hospital, now a naval training-school, lies the broad Thames, crowded with shipping of every imaginable size and rig, from wherry and fishing-boat to the great ocean steamers and men-of-war. Beyond the river are the low hills of Essex, and farther to the east the river widens toward the sea.

In London our party separated for a time, agreeing to rendezvous in Berlin on the first of August. Professor McNeill and I took our course together through Paris, Strassburg, Munich, Vienna, and Prague. We were in Paris only a week, and one of our days was the 14th of July, which gave us a fine opportunity to see a good-humored Parisian crowd numbering certainly 200,000 people, who in the early evening thronged all the streets and quais, and the great squares where the fireworks were displayed.

We visited the National Observatory one afternoon, and were very cordially received by the director, Admiral Mouchez, who although a sailor is also an

astronomer of high repute, especially in the line of longitude determinations.

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Royal Observatory of England, Greenwich.

The institution is a few years older than the Observatory of Greenwich, having been established in 1667, though the building was not completed until 1671. It is a larger and finer edifice than that of Greenwich, but curiously unsuited for its use. It has been adapted to astronomical purposes only by most ingenious modifications and roof structures, and many of the most important modern instruments are housed in separate constructions about the grounds; as for instance the great 4-foot reflector (useless), the equatorial coudé, and the photographic telescope of the Henry Brothers. In the evening we saw the photographic telescope and the equatorial coudé in actual operation, which were to us on the whole the most interesting objects. The equatorial coudé, or elbowed equatorial, is a telescope of 10 inches aperture, which is so fitted with two flat mirrors that the observer does not have to move out of his place in observing a star in any part of the sky; he sits quietly under cover, looking downward toward the south at an angle equal to that of the latitude of the place, having right before him the circles and all the mechanism of the instrument. The arrangement makes telescopic observation as facile and as comfortable as microscopic. The instrument is, of course, considerably complicated, and much more expensive than the ordinary equatorial; but the

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costly revolving dome is dispensed with, so that the saving in the building quite offsets the higher price of the instrument itself. The real objection to it is that the two reflections cause a loss of light, and also, unless the mirrors are perfectly flat, an injury to the definition. Some who have examined the instrument say that in this Paris instrument the figure is perfect, but we found it not quite the case. In looking at ε Lyræ with a high power, we detected a very perceptible distortion of the star images; so slight, however, as to be of no practical account in ordinary observation. Two or three instruments of this kind are now installed and at work in different French observatories, and a number of others are under construction. Loewy, its inventor, is very sanguine that the same construction can be applied advantageously to instruments of the largest size.

The photographic telescope and processes interested us greatly, and so did the Henry Brothers themselves, who,

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