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