Stars and unborn children had
got strangely mixed!
He tried to recall the origin of the name--he had learned it once in
the old Vicar's study. The Pleiades were attendants upon Artemis, the
huntress moon, he recalled vaguely, and, being pursued by Orion, were
set for safety among the stars. He even remembered the names of some
of them; there was Maia, Tagete, Alcyone, but the other four lay in
his mental lumber room, whence they could not be evoked, although
Merope, he felt sure, was one of them. Of Maia, however, he felt
positive.... How beautiful the names were!
Then, midway, in thinking about them, he found himself, as Monkey
said, thinking of something else: of his weeks at Bourcelles again and
what a long holiday it had been, and whether it was wasted time or
well-used time-a kind of general stock-taking, as it were, but chiefly
of how little he had accomplished after all, set down in black and
white. He had enjoyed himself and let himself go, rather foolishly
perhaps, but how much after all had he actually accomplished? He
remembered pleasant conversations with Mother that possibly cheered
and helped her--or possibly were forgotten as soon as ended. He
remembered his cousin's passing words of gratitude--that he had helped
him somehow with his great new story: and he remembered--this least of
all-that his money had done something to relieve a case or two of
suffering.
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