[Figure 28] When the nymphs of the Mediterranean discovered that Cassiopeia had been honored with a choice position among the stars, they were perfectly furious, and even the sympathy of Juno did not console them as she recalled the time that Callisto was transposed as Ursa Major to the stars. Odd fate that forced an Arcadian maid and an Ethiopian Queen to follow each other forever around the Arctic circle of the heavens! The Nereids, however, protested violently to Jupiter that such a reward for Cassiopeia's boasting was unfair and their influence so far prevailed that the Queen was set in a tilted fashion and forced to swing half of every night with her head hanging downward, and both her arms upraised. Furthermore, her "Chair" was strongly outlined while her queenly person was quite ignored. Thus the petty spite of the sea-nymphs was much worse than Cassiopeia's boasting. [Figure 29] There was a slight compensation, when, for all this humiliation, two of the stars in the "W" were named after the Queen's 'heart' and 'hand' by the Arabian astronomers,--Alpha, the lower star of the five bright ones, being called Shedir, "the heart," and Beta, in the back of the chair, Caph, "the tinted hand." About six centuries ago, a phenomenon happened among the stars in Cassiopeia's constellation, where, suddenly, in a position which had previously been blank, a new star shone forth. This star glowed as brightly as the planet Venus, which outshines every star in the sky. It was so bright that it was even visible in the daytime! This brilliancy then commenced to diminish, the star growing fainter and fainter until in about a year and a half it had completely disappeared. While new stars have been noted during the course of centuries, the appearance of one is always so unusual that it stands out against the background of the sky with almost a disquieting effect. The presence of an additional bright star, strange as it may seem, is immediately noticeable to one who is familiar with the constellations. Astronomers record its history with as much interest as the appearance of a new island or volcano would occasion on earth. Two theories for temporary stars are given in Moulton's "Introduction to Astronomy." Professor Moulton tells us that these theories are surrounded by serious objections--but they are interesting nevertheless. One is "that there is invisible nebulous or meteoric matter lying in various parts of space, particularly in the region occupied by the Milky Way (there is confirmatory evidence of this hypothesis); that there are also dark or very faint stars"--(that is stars which are in the last stages of cooling, a phenomenon also confirmed)--"that the dark stars, rushing through the nebulæ, blaze into incandescence as meteors glow when they enter the earth's atmosphere; that the heating is superficial and quickly dies away." Another hypothesis is that temporary stars "are produced by collisions of stars with stars."