Toads are curious creatures: there was one that used to sit watching Mr. Cheerlove at his gardening with its beautiful eyes, and sometimes climb a little way up the paling to have a better view. I suppose it varied the monotony of its life. ’Tis of no use to cart them away in a flower-pot; they will return from a considerable distance to their old quarters. If you hurt them, they will look at you very viciously—and why should they not? We have no call to molest the poor wretches; the world is wide enough for us all. Efts and newts are objectionable: they haunt old drains, dust-holes, and any damp, unaired corners. Moles loosen the soil, and make sad work sometimes with the roots of one’s flowers; but yet, on the whole, they are found to do more good than harm. They make themselves subterranean galleries, and are very methodical, taking their walks at stated times. Hence it is very easy to trap them; but if you take one, you may take two, for they are so affectionate that the mate is sure to follow the leader. Hence I always felt a sort of pang in having them destroyed, especially as they have such human-like little hands for paws; and I was glad to be told that the cruelty was unnecessary, and that their loosening the soil did it good, though it might injure particular plants. In moving a stack of firewood at Nutfield, we found underneath it a rat’s nest, containing fifteen partridges’ eggs. How did the rat convey them there? Did he roll them, or carry them on his fore-paws, walking on his hind legs? The starry heavens are now very glorious. Jupiter, bright, untwinkling planet, is splendid to behold. There are many more stars to be seen to the east than to the north; no human being knows why. The naked eye beholds what are called stars of the sixth magnitude, whose light left their surfaces a hundred and forty years ago. It is very singular that numerous stars, beyond the range of any but a very powerful telescope, prove to be placed in _couples_: they are called _binary_ stars. Before Sir William Herschell’s death, he had completed a list of three thousand three hundred double stars. His sister Caroline shared his watchings, and took down the result of his observations in writing. My dear father gave me a taste for astronomy very early in life; and in later years I have found star-gazing to have a strangely calming effect under the pressure of great trouble. I have looked out on the star-lit sky during Eugenia’s last illness, and after her death, till I felt every grief silenced, if not allayed, and every feeling steeped in submission. The stars make us feel so little! our lives so fleeting to a better world! our souls so near to God! O Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Perseus, I owe to you many a consoling and elevating thought of your Maker! * * * * *