LITTLE refraction to realize that they must have an even tem- 



JOURNEYS perature, but they forgot that pasteboard was porous. 



So one night they left their telescope out-of-doors, and 



a sudden shower transformed the straight tube into 



the arc of a circle. 



All attempts to straighten it were vain, so they took out 

 the lenses and went to work making a tube of copper. 

 In this, brother, sister and genius which is concentra- 

 tion and perseverance united to overcome the innate 

 meanness of animate and inanimate things. A failure 

 was not a failure to them it was an opportunity to 

 meet a difficulty and overcome it. 



The partial success of the new telescope aroused the 

 brother and sister to fresh exertions. The work had 

 been begun as a mere recreation a rest from the ex- 

 actions of the public which they diverted and amused 

 with their warblings, concussions and vibrations. 

 They were still amateur astronomers and the thought 

 that they would ever be anything else had not come 

 to them. But they wanted a better view of the heavens 

 a view through a Newtonian reflecting telescope. 

 So they counted up their savings and decided that if 

 they could get some instrument maker in London to 

 make them a reflecting telescope six feet long, they 

 would be willing to pay him fifty pounds for it. 

 This study of the skies was their only form of dissi- 

 pation, and even if it was a little expensive it enabled 

 them to escape the Pump-Room rabble and flee bore- 

 dom and introspection. 



A hunt was taken through London, but no one could 

 140 



