"It is as good as a play," said Harry, as his sister started to tell
him about them.
"First of all," she said, "I am going to tell you the story of the Royal
Family, although we cannot see them from this window. You can get a
glimpse of Cepheus from your own room, but the rest of the Royal Family
are overhead. You would have to make a hole through the roof if you
wanted to watch them while I told their story."
"If we could go out-of-doors, as we did last summer, could we see them
overhead?" asked Harry.
"Yes," replied his sister; "but it is too cold now to look at them except
from a warm, cozy room. To-morrow I shall show you a map of these stars,
and when the days grow warm again we can look for them in the sky."
"Can you see them during the summer-time as well as the winter?" asked
Harry.
[Illustration: QUEEN CASSIOPEIA.]
"Yes, we can see them all the year round, just as we can always see
the Pole Star and the Great Dipper. The Royal Family consists of King
Cepheus, Queen Cassiopeia, and her daughter Andromeda, sometimes called
the 'Chained Lady.' Perseus, the rescuer, is at the feet of Andromeda,
while her head rests upon the shoulder of the winged horse Pegasus.
"The Grecians told a wonderful story about this family. It appears that
Cassiopeia boasted of her beauty, and said she was more attractive than
Juno, the wife of Jupiter. As for her daughter Andromeda, not a nymph in
the sea could compare with her in good looks. You may imagine how Juno
and the sea-nymphs felt when they heard this vain boast!
"They determined to have revenge, and Juno asked Jupiter to punish
Cassiopeia. So she was sent away from the earth and placed among the
stars with her husband Cepheus.
[Illustration: KING CEPHEUS.]
"As for Andromeda, the sea-nymphs asked Neptune to send a sea-monster
to devour her. She was chained to a rock so that she might not escape
this terrible fate; but just as the monster was approaching a brave hero
named Perseus came to her rescue.
[Illustration: THE FAIR ANDROMEDE.]
"Perseus was returning through the air on his winged horse Pegasus
from a terrible encounter with the Gorgons. These were three sisters
who frightened everyone that saw them. Serpents were wreathed around
their heads instead of hair, their hands were of brass, their bodies
were covered with scales, and their eyes had the power of turning all
they looked at to stone. Perseus had cut off the heads of one of these
terrible beings, and when he saw the monster approaching Andromeda,
he turned the head which he still held in his hand toward it, and in a
moment it turned to stone.
"As a reward for his bravery, he was placed after his death among the
stars, and near the fair Andromeda. He still holds the head in his hand,
and a star named Algol, or the Demon, as the Arabs call it, marks the
evil eye. Sometimes it is bright, but in a few hours it will grow dim,
as though winking at the people on earth. For this reason it is called
a variable or changing star."
[Illustration: PERSEUS.]
"What is that, sister?" asked Harry.
"A star that is brighter one time than another. Supposing someone kept
turning the wick of the lamp up and down so that at one moment the room
would be very bright and the next moment quite dim. You would call that
a changing light. So it is with these stars, only in the case of Algol
it is a planet that goes around it and at times cuts off part of its
light. For two days and a half it is very bright, then during three or
four hours it begins to get dim, and remains so for twenty minutes and
then it gets bright again.
"Supposing you were trying to read by lamplight, and I should now and
then hold a book between the lamp and you. Each time I did so the light
on your book would grow dim. There is another variable or changing star
named Mira, in the group of stars called Cetus, which is no other than
the sea-monster which was sent to devour Andromeda. You can see it if
you look out of the window facing south, and you will notice that it is
at a safe distance from Andromeda, who is almost exactly overhead just
now."