'Well, I don't seek men much, and they find little encouragement in seeking me,' returned my uncle, taking a draught of burgundy, and fixing his dark eyes upon me. 'We do not sympathise with their aims, nor they with ours. And yet, nephew, I sometimes wish that Diana could see the world. She has strange fancies: perhaps I have no right to call them mere fancies, either!' He stopped abruptly: I was silent: presently he resumed again. 'I have tried to follow her in those strange flights of hers; if I were her own age, perhaps I might follow her after a fashion; but women are mysterious to men, especially young women like Diana--innocent as a flower, and fathomless as the ether. She is alone, quite alone, as far as human companionship goes. Ay, it might be well for her to see the world, were that possible, without the world's seeing her! I tell you, I sometimes fear the effect of this solitary life upon her--upon a girl with such a mind and heart. Heaven knows--I dare not ask--what unearthly friends she may hold communion with, up yonder in her tower!' 'I can imagine no communion so fitting for her as that of the stars,' said I. 'She was born to those studies, and has grown up in them: and she has divined secrets which no other human being has attempted. When she was born, I was full of the faith and eagerness of youth; and Diana, even as a child, showed traces of the influences that were uppermost with me. He who would fathom the stars, nephew, must needs be reverent, humble, and of a willing mind: they will not reveal themselves to self-conceit and prejudice. Age has stiffened my mental movements; the epoch of my deepest insight is gone, long since! Some rays of the great light once shone upon me; but they have faded--faded! Diana inherits all, and has made it more. Why, she is more at home among the craters of the moon than in her own boudoir!' and with this my uncle laughed again. 'She is the new daughter of the old astrology!' said I. 'Astrology? humph!' said my uncle. 'Mediæval astrology was crippled by religious superstition and intellectual darkness. But there was, no doubt, in prehistoric ages, an ancient race of men who had a profounder knowledge of this subject than modern minds are apt to imagine. From that primitive wisdom the science of ancient Egypt was a derivation--one of great subtlety and ingenuity, but lacking the celestial light of the earlier men. And the Egyptians, in turn, furnished the stock-in-trade upon which is founded the lore of our later Nostradamuses.' 'And is there truth in horoscopes and nativities?'