engaged on the task from which he could not desist for a moment.

When mathematical work had to be done Caroline was ready for it; she
had taught herself sufficient to enable her to perform the kind of
calculations, not, perhaps, very difficult ones, that Herschel's work
required; indeed, it is not too much to say that the mighty life-work
which this man was enabled to perform could never have been accomplished
had it not been for the self-sacrifice of this ever-loving and faithful
sister. When Herschel was at the telescope at night, Caroline sat by
him at her desk, pen in hand, ready to write down the notes of the
observations as they fell from her brother's lips. This was no
insignificant toil. The telescope was, of course, in the open air,
and as Herschel not unfrequently continued his observations throughout
the whole of a long winter's night, there were but few women who could
have accomplished the task which Caroline so cheerfully executed.
From dusk till dawn, when the sky was clear, were Herschel's observing
hours, and what this sometimes implied we can realise from the fact
that Caroline assures us she had sometimes to desist because the ink
had actually frozen in her pen. The night's work over, a brief rest
was taken, and while William had his labours for the day to attend to,
Caroline carefully transcribed the observations made during the night
before, reduced all the figures and prepared everything in readiness
for the observations that were to follow on the ensuing evening.

But we have here been anticipating a little of the future which lay
before the great astronomer; we must now revert to the history of his
early work, at Bath, in 1774, when Herschel's scrutiny of the skies
first commenced with an instrument of his own manufacture. For some
few years he did not attain any result of importance; no doubt he
made a few interesting observations, but the value of the work during