Urania said: "We are crossing the solar system of Gamma Andromedæ, of which you see but one part as yet; for it is made up, not of these two suns, but in reality of three,--one blue, one green, and one orange yellow. The blue sun, which is the smallest, turns around the green sun; and the latter gravitates with its companion around the great orange sun, which you will perceive in an instant." Sure enough! A second later I saw a third sun, colored with a glowing radiancy, whose contrast with its two companions produced a most dazzling illumination. I knew about this interesting sidereal system from having observed it more than once through the telescope; but I had never suspected its real splendor. What fiery depths! what scintillations! what brilliancy of color in that strange source of blue light in the second sun's green illumination and the tawny, golden effulgence of the third! [Illustration] But, as I have said, we were approaching one of the worlds belonging to the system of the sapphire sun. Everything was blue,--landscapes, water, plants, rocks,--slightly greenish on the side lighted by the second sun, and hardly touched by the rays of the orange sun, which was rising on the distant horizon. As we floated into the atmosphere of this world a soft, delicious music was wafted into the air like a perfume, a dream. Never had I heard anything like it. The sweet, deep, distant melody seemed to come from a choir of harps and violins, strengthened by an accompaniment of organs. It was an exquisite anthem, which charmed at once; it needed no analyzing to be understood; it filled the soul with ecstasy. It seemed to me that I could have lingered there listening for an eternity. I was so fearful of losing a single note that I dared not speak to my guide. Urania noticed it; stretching out her hand toward a lake, she pointed to a group of winged beings who were hovering over the blue waters. They had not the earthly human form. They were beings who had evidently been created to live in air. They seemed woven out of light. At a distance I thought they were dragon-flies; they had their slender, graceful shape, the same wide wings, quickness, and lightness. But on examining them more closely I noticed their height, which was not inferior to our own, and realized from the expression of their eyes that they were not animals. Their heads were very like that of the dragon-fly, and like those aerial creatures they had no legs. The delicious music to which I had been listening was but the noise of their flight. They were very numerous,--perhaps many thousands.