"And there are holes in it?"
"Sometimes."
"But they must be very large holes to be seen from this distance?"
"Very," said the doctor. "A great many times bigger than our whole earth."
"Then how do you know but they are dark islands in the ocean?"
"For several reasons," said the doctor, looking gravely funny; "one of which reasons is, that we can see the deep ragged edges of the holes, and that these edges join together again."
"But there could not be holes in our ocean?" said Daisy.
Dr. Sandford gave a good long grave look at her, set aside his empty plate which had held raspberries, and took a chair. He talked to her now with serious, quiet earnest, as if she had been a much older person.
"Our ocean, Daisy, you will remember, is an ocean of fluid matter. The ocean of flame which surrounds the sun is gaseous matter or a sort of ocean of air, in a state of incandescence. This does not touch the sun, but floats round it, upon or above another atmosphere of another kind like the way in which our clouds float in the air over our heads. You know how breaks come and go in the clouds; so you can imagine that this luminous covering of the sun parts in places, and shows the sun through, and then closes up again."
"Is that the way it is?" said Daisy.