without once removing his hands. Meantime his sister,
always his chief lieutenant, cheered him with her presence,
and from time to time put food into his mouth.
The telescope completed, the astronomer turned night
into day, and from sunset to sunrise, year in and year
out, swept the heavens unceasingly, unless prevented
by clouds or the brightness of the moon. His sister
sat always at his side, recording his observations.
They were in the open air, perched high at the mouth of
the reflector, and sometimes it was so cold that the ink
froze in the bottle in Caroline Herschel's hand; but the
two enthusiasts hardly noticed a thing so common-place as
terrestrial weather. They were living in distant worlds.

The results? What could they be? Such enthusiasm
would move mountains. But, after all, the moving
of mountains seems a liliputian task compared
with what Herschel really did with those wonderful
telescopes. He moved worlds, stars, a universe--
even, if you please, a galaxy of universes; at least he
proved that they move, which seems scarcely less wonderful;
and he expanded the cosmos, as man conceives
it, to thousands of times the dimensions it had before.
As a mere beginning, he doubled the diameter of the
solar system by observing the great outlying planet
which we now call Uranus, but which he christened
Georgium Sidus, in honor of his sovereign, and which
his French contemporaries, not relishing that name,
preferred to call Herschel.