too much annoyed to proceed, I waited, but soon meekly inquired, "May the Dust of the Earth again approach great Saturn, and hope that he will extend his clemency still further by continuing the very interesting account of his satellites ?"

My brother Titan," resumed he in a more friendly and appeased tone, "who revolves in a circle outside that of my queen Rhea, takes fifteen of your days to travel round me, and is nearly as large as Mars. He was, I think, very glad to be friends with me at last, for we had been much at variance whilst on your Earth. This is wrong for brothers, we have since found out. Next, I will present to you my nephews, Hyperion and Japetus; they perform their circuit. of my globe in twenty-one, and seventy-nine, of your days respectively."

Hyperion, Mimas, and Enceladus I found extremely difficult to clearly distinguish, as my glass, though better than the former one, was not very powerful.

"Japetus," pursued Saturn," was so unhappy when I brought his wife Tethys to be in my train, that I took pity on him, and offered him

my furthest satellite, which he was very pleased to take, rather than be left out in the cold."

"You are quite a family party," I said, "and it must be a comfort to have them all round you!"

"Yes!" said he, "I am very well satisfied, all the more, as they add to my appearance, which also is so singular; but I retire from your sight now, for my course is taking me out of the range of your vision!"

Great Saturn! I trust that before we quite part company, you will tell me what you are able to observe on our Earth from

distance."

your immense

"Truly, it is not much that I can see, but as I still take an interest in its products, I will tell you another time of one of the smallest plants on your Earth. Now, I must leave you."

CHAPTER XVI.

WHAT SATURN SAW.

A MOSS STORY.

TRUE

to his word, I sighted Saturn the following evening. His distance had certainly increased visibly, and some of his satellites I could not see at all; his voice also sounded much farther away, though I still managed to hear pretty distinctly what he said.

"You wish to know the subject of my story, I think it will be appropriately called

66 A MOSS STORY.

"I have previously told you," he began, "that my wife and I always attended the unfolding of every leaf, down to the smallest moss. Now I wish you to understand that I do not mean

we created them, Nature, or as you would say, your GOD does that, but we attended to them ever after. One of your Earth's great writers has said, 'He who could examine the nutrition, the growth, the regular conformation, the provision made for the continuance of the species of even the minutest moss, without perceiving in them proofs of intelligence, power, and goodness, would probably receive no more conviction from the sublimest truths that astronomy can unfold!' I should say just the same, but viceversa; and it is wonderful to me how few of your Earth people take up the study of this little botanical fairyland.

"The varieties are so numerous, and their beauties so endless, that, besides the interesting fact that it is one of the very first green layers of clothing that Nature draws over rugged stone and wood, they afford a wonderful field for research and exploration in their own innermost marvels.

"You are accustomed to see moss everywhere without thinking about it,-on the mountain tops, in the stony rills that trickle down their sides,

and as you follow these down into the bogs and wooded valleys, you still find mosses of other sorts-from the woolly kinds that clothe the trees, to the waving water-species rising and falling with each motion of the gentle streams. Wherever a seed can fly or fall, wherever water can trickle, there you find

mosses.

"You passingly admire the soft green tufts in the marshes, so treacherous to stand upon, and dive your hand into an emerald cushion of feathery moss as it grows like little fairy ferns on the side of a woodland bank; but you seldom seem to think more about it, and the poor moss, uprooted from its bed, lies forgotten, soon after, on the ground from which you pulled it.

"However, it does not die, for moss has immense powers of revivification when re-moistened. I have known moss put away and pressed tight for thirty-five years become quite green again when laid in water, and open out its tiny leafy arms as if but just gathered.

"But the moss's harvest is the time of its greatest beauty. Had you taken home some of