“This is the Starland River,” she explained. “The Ancients called it the Eridanus. That was the name of one of their own Earth rivers. Once Phaeton tried to drive the chariot of the Sun,—the Sun God was his father,—but he didn’t know how, and horses, chariot, and all plunged into the river, and he was drowned for his folly, but the chariot and horses came out shining again the next morning at sunrise. And Phaeton’s three sisters stood on the bank of the river and mourned and mourned for him, and wouldn’t go away. So Jupiter kindly changed them into poplar trees;—and right here—and here—and here”—she showed the places and the Others laid especial shells—“are the stars that mark the tall poplars on the bank. At least, that’s what I think. You may choose others if you like, but they are certainly there.” The Princess surprisingly sprang up, and the pointed shell flew out of her hand, over the hard sand, and beyond the worrying green-white edge, into the gray sea. “What did you do that for?” Pat remonstrated. “Because-that-was-a-sign-that-it-wouldn’t-be-lucky-to-have-any-more- drawing-on-the-sand-because-that-was-Enough,” said the Princess. “Will you tell it now?” asked the Kitten. And she would; but back under the cliff, where there were rocks—smooth and hollowed by the ocean, long ago, and another one for a back,—and where those crazy comets on the sand wouldn’t be looking at them. “You hardly would believe how happy the care of the Sailor’s Star made Little Bear,” said the Princess, when they were all comfortable,—“proud of his responsibility, and most grateful to the Star People.” “Because they gave him stars?” asked the Kitten. “Yes, and allowed him to have that responsible thing to do when he wanted it so much; and it made them happy to see his pleasure, and to feel that they all had a share in it—because he was their own dear Little Bear. Now, at the time this story happened, everything had been comfortable and pleasant for a long time. Little Bear hadn’t had his star so long he had forgotten the time before he had it; but he had grown used to having it on the end of his tail, and could keep it over the Pole without giving his mind to it. And nobody had seen a comet for ever so long, so they weren’t thinking about them. “But, very early one morning, any one of the Star People who had been awake to look, might have seen, peeping up over the rim of the Sky, a small, vagabond head. He shook his fuzzy hair out of his eyes and came up a little farther, switching his long tail that had a wicked crook at the end of it, as he danced up and down like an elf! A more rascally Comet you wouldn’t care to see!” The Others wriggled with appreciation, but they didn’t speak, to interrupt. “The Star People were in their first sleep, and not dreaming of any harm; and what a chance for the worst, small comet in the Sky!