"And therefore my heart is heavy
With a sense of unquiet pain,
For but Heaven can tell if the parted
Shall meet in the earth again.
"With Him be the time and the season
Of our meeting again with thee:
Whether here, on these earthly borders,
Or the shore of the world to be."
CAREY.
One day our party had traveled further than on any previous occasion: long and tedious was the ride, still they pushed on, hoping to reach some stream ere the tents were pitched for the night, as an abundant supply of pure fresh water was essential to the comfort of their camp. In the metaphorical 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 Æneas 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.'