‘Have you seen the mysterious sky-visitor? On Friday evening our maids saw something like three stars, one red,--but they disappeared. On the following night Cousins[12] called me to look on what I would not have missed seeing for a good deal. About thirty degrees above the horizon, I should think, shone what was like a star, but more splendid than any that I had ever beheld, of a brilliant magenta colour. It was no falling star passing rapidly through the sky, but appeared quite fixed in the heavens for--perhaps ten minutes. As I gazed with something like awe on its wondrous beauty, suddenly its colour utterly changed; the magenta became white, with a greenish tinge; and then--as suddenly--the star disappeared; not as if hidden by a cloud, but as if _put out_.