“Suppose some time they would go off, and it was a clear night—and they moved around?” said Pat.
“I couldn’t imagine anything so dreadful,—nor the Star People, either! Don’t you fancy, because they haven’t any captain, that they have nothing to obey.”
“What?”
“They have Law!—and that’s something every one of them obeys without a single word, or ever stopping to argue. When anything is the Rule of the Sky, that ends it.—Unless you’re a comet.”
“Oh, comets!” exclaimed Phyllisy.” What do they do?”
“What don’t they do?” corrected the Princess. “They’re silly. Just a head, with the wildest, fuzziliest hair,”—she drew on the sand as she talked,—“that never saw a hairbrush—and tails!—switching and flying and spreading over everything and curling around!—and, as if one such tail weren’t bad enough, some of them must have two!”
The Princess stopped drawing, because the sand was filled up with comets, as far as she could reach. “That one is like the Kitten,” said Pat. “Yours would be, if it weren’t braided,” the Kitten answered.
“Only in looks, I’m sure,” said the Princess, politely. “The Star People try to be charitable, and when they hear of some fresh bad thing one of those flyaways has done, they say: ‘He doesn’t know enough to be good;’ and they don’t talk about it any more. But when any really horrid mischief is done, it’s always when a comet or two has been around.”
“What did one do?—some mischief,” Pat suggested.
“I should think you’d all rather hear about somebody good,” said the Princess. But the Others giggled—and wouldn’t.