F. But still, HELENE, I think our young folks are not really deficient in sentiment. What they would be, with six or seven moons, like those of SATURN or URANUS, is frightful to think of! Heavens! what poetry would spring up, like asparagus, in the genial spring-time! We should see Raptures, I warrant you! And oh, the frensies, the homicidal energies, the child-roastings! Yes, Moonshine would make it livelier here, no doubt. A fine time, truly, for Ogres, with their discriminating scent!—And what a moony sky! How odd, if one had a parlor with six windows.
D. Seven would be odder.
F. Well, seven, and a moon looking into each one of 'em! An artist would perhaps object to the cross-lights, but he needn't paint by them.
D. What kind of "lights" were you speaking of?
F. Satellites.
D. Oh, pshaw! don't tantalize me!
F. Well, cross-lights.
D. Now, pray, what may a cross-light be? An unamiable and inhospitable light, like that which gleams from the eyes of an astronomer when he is interrupted in the midst of a calculation?
F. No, nor yet the sarcastic sparkle in the eyes of a witty but selfish and unfilial young lady! Cross-lights are lights whose rays, coming from opposite quarters, cross each other.
D. (Then yours and mine are cross-lights, I guess!) If two American twenty-five cent pieces were to be placed at a distance from each other, and you stood between them——