they walked, or rather somehow her eyes kept travelling thitherward of
themselves, as if indeed they had to do with things up there. And the
child that cries for the moon is wiser than the man who looks upon the
heavens as a mere accident of the earth, with which none but
_unpractical_ men concern themselves.

But as she walked gazing at "an azure disc, shield of tranquility," over
her head, she set her foot down unevenly, and gave her ankle a wrench.
She could not help uttering a little cry.

"There now, Hester!" said Cornelius, pulling her up like a horse that
stumbled, "that's what you get by your star-gazing! You are always
coming to grief by looking higher than your head!"

"Oh, please, stop a minute, Corney," returned Hester, for the fellow
would have walked on as if nothing had happened. "My ankle hurts so!"

"I didn't know it was so bad as that!" he answered stopping. "There!
take my arm."

"Now I can go on again," she said, after a few moments of silent
endurance. "How stupid of me!--on a plain asphalt pavement!"

He might have excused her with the remark that just on such was an
accidental inequality the more dangerous.

"What bright, particular star were you worshipping now?" he asked
scoffingly.

"What do you mean by that?" she rejoined in a tone affected by her