And the crowned star gazed undauntedly on the face of the
archangel, and answered:

"Yea!--grant me but one trial!"

Ere the archangel could reply, the farthest centre of the heaven
was rent as by a thunderbolt; and the divine herald covered his
face with his hands, and a voice low and sweet, and mild with
the consciousness of unquestionable power, spoke forth to the
repining star:

"The time has arrived when thou mayest have thy wish. Below
thee, upon yon solitary plain, sits a mortal, gloomy as thyself,
who, born under thy influence, may be moulded to thy will."

The voice ceased, as the voice of a dream. Silence was over the
seas of space, and the archangel, once more borne aloft, slowly
soared away into the farther heaven, to promulgate the divine
bidding to the stars of far-distant worlds.

But the soul of the discontented star exulted within itself; and
it said, "I will call forth a king from the valley of the
herdsmen, that shall trample on the kings subject to my fellows,
and render the charge of the contemned star more glorious than
the minions of its favored brethren; thus shall I revenge
neglect--thus shall I prove my claim hereafter to the heritage
of the great of earth!"


At that time, though the world had rolled on for ages, and the