“Long as Ancients?” (The Princess knew all about the Ancients,—several kinds of them. She knew everything.)
“Long as that,” she answered. “They’re the very ones who named the Star People for us, saw the figures in the stars, and gave them the names of their own gods and heroes, animals,—all sorts of queer things. Useful lives they led, those Star People, ever after.”
“How were they useful?” asked Phyllisy.
“To the sailors, Beloveds, most of all, or any one who wants to find his way where there’s nothing on Earth to guide him. In the middle of the most vastest ocean or the most widest plain, all they have to do is to look up and see where the Star People are; then they’ll know where they are themselves, and where to go to be somewhere else. Of course the Star People can’t help any one who doesn’t know them,” she added.
“We don’t. We could be lost any time,” said Pat.
“You might have been once, but not after this. There’s a whole Royal Family right before your eyes now: Queen Cassiopeia on her throne and King Cepheus beside her and their pretty daughter, Andromeda.—That is one of Cepheus’ stars—and there’s another.” The Princess drew lines with her finger from the stars of the big “W” to the ones they wanted to find. And the Others picked them out, passing from star to star like crossing a brook, jumping from stone to stone. There were different colors, too, to help them. The Princess saw them plainly,—red stars and blue and yellow, and never before had the Others seen anything but all alike and plain shining. At first they believed it only because the Princess said so; then they began to see it themselves, but it was still too light to see very well. And they found a few stars of Andromeda.
“There is a beautiful young hero who belongs with them,” said the Princess. “He’s down below the treetops now; he will come up later. He is Perseus,—the Rescuer. He helped the Cassiopeia family out of terrible trouble when they were all Earth People.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Phyllisy. “Perseus-and-the-Gorgon?”
“No less. A friend of yours, Miss Phyllisy?”
Miss Phyllisy nodded, and Pat twisted her eyebrow.